


The Meeting In Bel Air - Part I/II

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [16]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, L.A. Life, Los Angeles, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Original Character(s), Romance, Romantic Comedy, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:17:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five days to find one answer. But is it the right one.<br/><strong></strong><br/><a href="http://seanandholdenseries.tumblr.com/">Book cover at the series Tumblr.</a><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The temperature in Johnston was unseasonably warm. Warmer even than in LA, which for mid March was crazy. This was according to both Anne and the weather report. 

Anne was in her kitchen sweating because they’d naturally had the house warm for the winter months and now it wasn’t cooling fast enough in the sudden heat wave. She marveled that nevertheless all of Johnston was sunning itself. Like Sean, she loved the winter, and found it physically taxing to have these hot spells disrupt the “comfortable” cold. A notion he found completely nuts and totally endearing. What confounded him was why no heat wave had come to rescue him while he’d been in Johnston, freezing the best parts of himself off. 

Or into syrupy icicles, if your believed Sean Jackson.

It was Sunday evening, three nights after the estate party in Beverly Hills where Sean had come and asked for them to go into Bel Air. He was lying on his living room couch, about to go into the office.

He hadn’t spoken with Anne since they’d called her and Wil after Soirée, but tonight he’d wanted to hear her voice.

Sean, meanwhile, was in Malibu, moon-bathing with baby seals or whatever it was he was always trying to get them to do in those dark waters at night. But instead of fearing for his life, he was safely ensconced having a lovely evening chat with Anne.

Before being distracted by the heat, they had been talking about the images from Johnston, which he had been saving off the web, a folder of which he had sent her the night before. She had told him she loved them and couldn’t remember the last time she had seen a collection “so full of love and life.”

He had since been beaming a smile he was glad no one was around to see.

He’d told her he didn’t know about that, he’d seen her secret stash and it had been life-ruining.

She’d thanked him distractedly—she was baking those crazy delicious shortbread chocolate chip cookies of hers and it seemed she was looking for something—before she found it and he smiled when he heard her, “Ah,” and a quiet whisking joined their conversation.

“I still think you’ll end up having a better collection than both Wil and I,” she now said. “Not to mention how right at home they’ll be at our next get together.”

He went on smiling at the vaulted ceiling, thinking that if his pictures were shown the next time the family got together, he might actually be happy enough to forgive Sean for making him leave Johnston sooner than he’d wanted.

Then, closing his eyes, he listened to the sounds of normalcy. 

He could almost smell the shortbread and chocolate. And see the picturesque mess she made while at it, like how it always impossibly looked in magazines, and exactly how Sean baked.

And he could very easily see the kitchen.

Towards the back, at the breakfast table where he had sat with his fear-weighted thoughts that morning of his absolute worst fight with Sean. Trying to drink and keep down the coffee she had made him. And then to the right, the counter that ran along one side, where Sean had stood later that morning, in tears because love hurt so much, and in ways you didn’t expect.

It was all so vivid, and maybe why tonight, before it all gave way to annoyance and frustration, he’d needed to call.

“And I definitely think,” Anne was saying, whisking away, “that you should have a display going at the wedding.”

“Really?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “You don’t think it’ll be too cheesy?”

“It usually is,” she said, and paused with a heavy sigh, possibly, he suspected, to wipe sweat and wispy blonde hair from her forehead. “We were at a friend’s wedding last year and they had something like that going and I could have gagged.”

He started laughing under his breath.

“Wil tried telling them it wasn’t always about showing _everything,_ but who listens these days.”

He shook his head. She was just so cool. Coupled with her great taste in cars and her love of travel, it really was a wonder that he wasn’t her son. Well, at least, _he_ thought so.

“We’ll know how to make yours look lovely, dear.”

“I’m counting on it.”

She had stopped whisking and he heard her set the bowl on the counter. She suddenly asked, “Have you two picked out your tuxes yet?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere. So much so that for a moment his eyes flew to the hallway where his study was currently rooming the catalogs Elliot that had been hitting him over the head with. The things that had come to symbolize his subconscious feelings towards wedding planning. Still sitting largely untouched.

“Uh— no, actually, I’m— we’re…” he squeezed his eyes shut, not having expected to be talking about this particular block of his. 

“We haven’t done that yet,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said gently.

Forcing a light tone, he said, “Is it supposed to be this difficult picking out groomswear? I get dressed for occasions all the time, and yet I can’t seem to pick out a simple black suit and shirt combination.”

She sighed, genuinely. “It only gets worse as you get older, dear.”

Unexpected laughter bubbled from him. He smiled at his feet. 

“You’re the best, Anne. The prettiest and the best.”

“Oh, pfft,” she said, making one of the most adorable motherly sounds he had ever heard.

He held on to his smile. But he felt torn.

While in Johnston she had said to let her and Wil know about the big things. Things that might cause a rift between him and Sean so as to not ever let it get to the point where one of them felt hopeless enough to walk out on the relationship. 

The problem was, he and Sean were fine. It was his parents that were the issue.

And because of who his parents were, what he had struggled with personally where she was concerned, he was embarrassed to tell her what was happening. Probably foolishly, but it was how he felt. 

Having managed to gain some of her love, and having done so through so much negativity, he wasn’t about to go backwards and dirty himself with exposure of his family’s habits. He was going to figure out a way forward—or out—without dragging her or any of Sean’s family into it. And as far as he knew, Sean was respecting his wishes and hadn’t told any of them about his parents’ attempts to take over the wedding. As far as they knew, they’d just secured a wedding planner and were finalizing some things before inviting both sets of parents to take over some stuff.

Like with any normal wedding.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Anne said now, and for a moment he forget that they were supposed to be talking about tuxedoes. 

“Sean did mention that you two are going to see your parents this weekend?”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, then cleared his throat. “There’re just…a couple of things we need to go over with them first.”

“So he said.”

And then she was quiet. 

And he couldn’t help wondering exactly what she knew.

He imagined her carefully arranged expression, the one she’d had ready for him that first night of dinner at their house. The one she took on when she was observing and not butting in. 

Numb as he’d been that morning of his fight with Sean, he’d glimpsed her barely contained wrath while finishing his coffee. And Kay had confirmed that it had later come out at Sean. Along with the story Allison had told him about her trying to drop Wil’s alcoholic brother for talking shit about her daughter, he was perfectly aware of her long-lead approach to delicate family matters. And now half the country and a whole lot of understanding later, he couldn’t help but wonder whether upon hearing what his parents had done, she’d be angry on his and Sean’s behalf. Or whether like her son she’d want him to try and compromise. Simply for being a mother herself.

But from the sound of it, all Anne did now was open the fridge and set the bowl of batter inside. He heard the fridge door shut and Anne was quiet. 

It was comforting to think there might be sympathy in her pale blue eyes.

“Call us if you need anything, Holden,” she said quietly.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. The words sank in without any extra weight. 

He was nodding before remembering that he was on the phone. 

“I will, Anne.”

She took a breath herself. “All right, honey. I have to hurry along. Wil and I have poker at a friend’s. Take a hug, and give Sean a kiss from me.”

“Will do,” he said with a smile. “Bye.”

He disconnected and slowly took off his earpiece, then laid there with his eyes on the ceiling. That had been the textbook definition of a good call. 

He swung his legs from the couch and sat up, just as his phone began playing the Superman theme. 

Smiling, he touched to answer and brought the phone to his ear, and asked his man of steel if he had enjoyed a nice seafood dinner.

Sean snorted. “They miss you. They ask after you every time.”

“Tell those ocean loving seals they can go to hell.”

Sean laughed, brief, sexy, just right for what he needed.

“Your mom said to give you a kiss, from her.”

“Did she now?”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with her.”

“And how are they doing?”

“They’re doing very well. Although…did I hear her say that she and Wil were going to a poker night?”

“Yeah,” Sean said, sounding reluctant to get into it. “Don’t ever play poker with old people, by the way.”

He chuckled. “They’re not old.”

“Listen, sweetheart, are you gonna be up late?”

“Just stay there, you sea creature. I’ve got an early morning anyway.”

“Fuck that. I wanna see you. I’ll be quiet coming in.”

Not that it would make any difference, as he’d likely be up shortly after, sweating his tailbone off and trying to decide whether to take a shower right after or just go back to sleep.

“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

He ended the call, sat there for a moment, then stood up to head into the office.

*

After returning from New York, he’d made himself the simple promise that he wouldn’t think about the situation with his parents until he absolutely had to. Not about his mother or father, what happened on Ben Hanan’s boat, or about the contents of his phone.

All told, he’d had about a day and a half to enjoy that freedom. It was why he had called Anne. A kind of marking to the end of his hiatus. Now there were no more excuses and no more time to make them. At this week’s end they were going into Bel Air, into reality. And he needed a clear head on where exactly they were at this point.

Elliot, he knew from their last frowning conversation in Petey’s office, would be pleased. As should he. This was, after all, what he did, and that was to handle things. But he wasn’t pleased.

Sean had an…unprepared impression of what the meeting was actually going to be about. As far as Sean knew, they were going to talk about the wedding. But in truth the meeting was going to be about seeing how Sean could be brought in line to seamlessly fit into the family. Of that he had no doubt. And while Sean was taking a look at the wedding ideas, he wasn’t about to go without knowing what his parents’ game plan was.

To that end, he had set a series of meetings, starting with the one tonight. Meetings in which he would see and hear everything his parents had been up to while he had been too busy doing “God knows what,” to quote his mother, to focus on the important things. God knew what, such as worrying over Sean’s hard silences during the winter, or losing his relationship in his partner’s hometown.

So late that night, he was in his office, in a meeting with a man named Arthur Railings.

Arthur was the man behind Railings & Associates, an investigative firm that had been working for his family for decades and the firm his mother used to investigate Sean.

He hadn’t seen Arthur in well over a year, not since his last breakup while Sean had been away two football seasons ago. He had asked Arthur to bring over the file on Sean.

Arthur brought the paperwork himself, leaving it on the center table and going to stand at the glass wall overlooking Santa Monica Boulevard, bright with night life. Arthur stood in his usual fashion, unwilling to sit while he gave a report. Stolid in appearance, unchanged since he’d been a kid watching him bring files to his father. More like a financial advisor than a man privy to dirty secrets.

With his back to him, Arthur told him everything he wished to know about the file, including that his mother had given her consent to disclosing whatever information he asked.

“A copy of the release is in there,” Arthur said. “Last document in the file.”

He was sitting on the edge of the sofa in the office, and for drawn out moments didn’t make a single move to see the release.

He’d looked through most of the file already, and he was struggling with a feeling, seeing it before him, that he hadn’t prepared himself for.

What he was feeling was emotional pain. 

No less real in intensity than if a hand had reached inside and was squeezing his heart.

And what was worse, not for the obvious reasons.

Of course, he had known of the file’s existence. Whatever else he was feeling about it, it was par for the course. And it wasn’t a small file, by any means. Though truthfully, he hadn’t wanted to deal with it, until it became impossible to ignore from the publication of some of its privileged contents in the article. 

And his mother had used the information well. 

But he had known that it had been set in motion. Right from the week it was opened. The earliest report generated in there was dated June 3rd of last year, several days after he had accepted Sean’s marriage proposal. And since neither he nor Sean had told anyone for some time, he presumed whomever they had at Harry Winston had informed Arthur or his parents of Sean’s order of an engagement ring. Never mind that he had kept the seriousness of his relationship with Sean under wraps to begin with. Never mind that hardly anyone had known they were even dating.

It also didn’t contain anything he didn’t already know and probably nothing the NFL didn’t either. And as Sean had pointed out, nothing any reporter who wished to dig deep couldn’t uncover. Quite aside from the fact that its contents summed up a life anyone would be proud to call their own. 

But that wasn’t why it hurt to see.

Telling himself to simply do it, he slowly paged to the back of file, to the last document there. Checking for the presence of the release wasn’t what was propelling him. It would be there. 

He still hadn’t asked Sean what his meeting with his mother had been like, but he could have easily guessed. He was all too aware of her low regard of Sean as a future member of the family—a thought that made him feel like he was losing his mind—so to her, him seeing the contents of the file was of little interest. Probably she felt that anything he saw in there would only bolster her argument.

He was now looking at the release, at the signature line, his heart pounding so painfully he wanted to switch it off for some relief. 

But he was already shaking with relief.

Embarrassed, he shifted his gaze from the document. He was an idiot.

Of course his father’s signature wouldn’t be on the form. It never was. Anything publicity related with the family, his mother handled. It was part of their divorce settlement. It didn’t mean his father wasn’t participating. Wasn’t one hundred percent involved in the conversation.

So this relief he was feeling was idiotic. The absence of a signature didn’t add an iota of support to anything his father had said on the boat. It wasn’t some kind of proof of sincerity.

Proof would have been to stop the file a long time ago. Like last August when Sean left for the season, and after his dad had spent all summer dragging him around like a new toy. 

In December, when he’d claimed he was so worried watching him all but fall sick with longing for Sean.

Or three weeks ago. After he had said all those… things that were supposed to signal a new connection between them.

But the file was still open. Still active. And his father had been, and would continue to be, a part of keeping it alive. 

It hurt so much to know it, he could barely stomach his own weakness. All that nonsense about “knowing” Sean was different. Well, here was documentation that neither parent was about to have a wonderful change of heart on any of it. Neither on how to approach to his wedding nor his relationship. To them Sean was not only not different, but from the size of the file was apparently more of an issue than all the rest.

His father could just take a walk with all that stuff he’d said.

Ignoring the thoughts frantically trying to flag down his attention, he simply closed the file. Then, placing his fingers on it, he shoved slowly until it was precipitously balanced at the edge of the table. 

Arthur turned from the glass.

“All good?”

He couldn’t speak.

Arthur left the glass and came to retrieve the file. 

In his blunt, hard, hands the dull-colored folder looked innocuous. He tapped it lightly against his palm, his method of asking permission to leave.

He nodded again, not quite trusting himself to speak. 

Arthur acknowledged with a nod and wished him good night. Arthur had grabbed the door knob before he found his voice.

“What do you think of him?”

Arthur stopped at the door but didn’t turn around. 

And being candid about it, it didn’t seem like Arthur wanted to. Like he had no wish to turn around and look at him.

And then Arthur did, completely facing him. They were looking directly at each other, but it didn’t feel that way, and when Arthur spoke it was like listening to a recording from another room.

“Everyone’s got dirt on them, but his is okay. He’s also taken care of any blowback which in my experience is extraordinary. I suppose that’s what it takes to be a man in his position. Your mother knows, I’d give him a passing grade.”

He kept looking at Arthur.

“You didn’t need me to tell you that,” Arthur said.

“No,” he said quietly. “Not really. But I don’t think any of that matters to her.”

Then Arthur shifted, and when he looked at him again Arthur was suddenly there in the room with him. The tough guy he’d always gazed upon from afar as a kid. Wordlessly staring at him. 

Arthur, he had no need to remind himself, was the man his father had used the first time a man had broken through his defenses. 

Anything he had done in his life, Arthur likely knew. And now Arthur was staring at him like he had something to say.

Maybe a few somethings.

“Just say it, Arthur.”

“All right, I will.” Arthur let go of the door knob and straightened. “What I’ll say is this. You’ve always been your own man, Mr. Wilson. That much has been clear from the beginning.”

And that was all Arthur said.

The words unfurled slowly and floated across the room to him like an accusation.

Arthur grabbed the knob again and this time turned it. “Good night, Mr. Wilson.”

“Good night, Arthur. Thank you.”

The door quietly clicked shut behind the investigator.

He sat back. That had been painful. But he didn’t regret it. And the next three would be easier. 

Here began the week.


	2. Chapter 2

Alastair wanted them up Friday, Sean was telling him. Alastair also wanted them to stay the weekend. If they agreed, his plan was to have them join him Friday evening for dinner, spend Saturday with him in Santa Barbara looking at a vineyard he was contemplating buying, then on Sunday have brunch with him and his mother. At brunch the four of them would, his father very optimistically thought, discuss “all issues relating to the wedding.”

Sean finished delivering the message and waited.

No great surprise, Sean was still in communication with his father. He almost felt sorry for Sean, having to hear all the griping his dad was sure to be indulging in over him not toeing the new-order line. Especially after that fiasco that had been their meeting at the Club’s golf course. He hadn’t seen him since seeing him looking…whatever at David Geffen’s reception, meantime he hadn’t gotten a single new text from him since before New York. And he had not, since granting himself the hiatus, looked at the contents of his phone.

All was as it should be. He needed all the headspace he could get.

Monday morning as it was, he was slotting weekend files back into his brief, about to leave for work. Sean was sitting on a credenza by the study door, bare chested in only a pair of jogging bottoms. Sean was either planning on heading down to the gym or escaping to Malibu, he wasn’t sure which. He was just looking forward to a little goodbye action at the door. 

Half naked as Sean was, the bruise on his nose, that caused him deeper heart beats every time he saw it, was slightly more noticeable. Thankfully, like clockwork, it was healing to the point of being barely there. A kiss in the morning and another in the evening, Sean had explained, while extracting said cure, was all any injury needed to heal. He’d told him he’d love to see him try and sell that line to Paula in the fall.

For now, Sean was selling him a whole other type of line. One he was as unwilling to buy as Paula would be for his miracle cure.

“So what’d you say, sweetheart?” Sean asked. “What are we doing about your dad’s plans for the weekend?”

What indeed.

He slowed down his file arranging. Not wanting any misunderstandings, just wanting the information conveyed, he spoke clearly in laying out his own plan.

“I say we go up Friday, just because I know you actually want to have dinner with him. But then we’re done. My mother can either show up Saturday or she can forget it. I’m not spending the day hanging out with him, and I’m definitely not spending the entire weekend.”

Sean was quiet. Then he nodded.

He glanced at him to see Sean’s eyes on him, in an easy way. Yet…it was having the opposite effect on him. The look in them seemed very familiar.

“And I do have one condition for us going, Sean. We can’t talk about anything to do with me and him. We can’t even let him bring it up.”

Sean didn’t reply immediately. “Bring what up?” he asked slowly.

“Whatever happened on Ben’s boat. That conversation is off limits.”

Sean was quiet again.

And then it dawned on him where he had seen this look in Sean’s eyes before. In NFL highlight videos. Tons of which he had watched during the winter. It was the look Sean got when he was standing on the sidelines, watching his team’s defensive action. When he was looking for all the errors his offense would later possibly have to correct.

_Great._

“I’ll take care of it,” Sean said.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, so listen, I’ve put together some ideas to take up this weekend. And show my folks later. You up for looking at them later?”

He hesitated, then nodded. He could do it. He had to. Even if he felt that the meeting was a slight of hand on his parents’ part, Sean had been acting above the call of duty during this period. The least he could do was participate.

“You’re sure?” Sean asked.

He nodded again. “I- I have a lot on my plate this week, but— I’m sure.”

Finished, he zipped up his brief. 

Sean slowly got up from the cabinet and came over to him. They were suddenly standing very close, Sean staring down at him from his two-inch height advantage, the look gone from his eyes. 

It had been replaced by a more congenial one. 

And he was wondering why Sean was gently touching his fingers and making him hand over his brief in such a coaxing manner, that is, until Sean spoke.

“One last thing. Your dad and I are having dinner Thursday night.”

He clenched his jaw, took a breath, and looked up at him. Sean’s lashes batted softly at him. He shut his eyes, shaking his head.

“You can’t be serious. In addition to us going up this weekend?”

Sean nodded.

“So then why’re we going up Friday night? Why can’t we just go in the morning and meet with them Saturday for lunch?”

“Well…I think he wants to have dinner with you on Friday.”

“Is he _making_ you meet him, Sean?”

“No, sweetheart, that’s not it all. It’s for charity.” And then probably realizing how that sounded, Sean added, “I’m on the team’s organizing committee for our annual charity golf tournament. It’s taking place this May and your dad said he’d introduce me to some business friends of his who could make it a hit. That’s all Thursday’s about.”

Was that supposed to make him feel better or something?

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Sean suddenly said. “I didn’t ask you because I didn’t think you’d want to take on one more thing this summer. Especially not something to do with the league.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well… uh…” Sean stopped, seemingly at a loss. Then he squinted an eye, looked a little abashed, and said, “Not…sure if you… like the league? Or…football?”

“Sean, you’re insane. We have this conversation every four months.”

Sean scratched his beard.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, holding up a hand. “I wouldn’t want to organize a golf tournament even if I did have the time. I couldn’t think of a more boring way to spend an afternoon than playing golf, much less doing stuff for it all summer. I’m honestly not even sure how you find the holes in the ground, so probably not the best person for it anyway.”

He had finished talking for some time and was looking at a document on his desk that he was sure was supposed to be in his brief when he realized that Sean hadn’t responded.

He looked at him to find Sean staring at him. In a way that, for him, was pretty vacantly.

“You’re saying you don’t play golf?” Sean asked. He shook his head. 

“How did I not know that about you?” Sean asked incredulously.

He set the document down. 

About to suggest that it might be in the same place he stored information about him not having anything against football or the NFL, his brain simply sighed and told him not to bother. One of them was saying crazy things this morning, and it wasn’t him.

—

Arriving at the gym downstairs in Holden’s building, he raised a hand in greeting to a smiling Xander, the gym’s manager and long suffering Holden personal trainer. Or potential personal trainer more like it, as barely an hour three nights a week was more like hanging with a friend than doing anything serious.

Xander had gotten him a nice spacious locker in a corner of the men’s locker room, with the idea of giving him some privacy, but it was actually always okay being there as not a lot of the building’s tenants used it during normal morning work hours.

Setting his phone on the locker’s ledge, he saw it light up with Holden’s number. It was just going eight and Holden had likely just arrived at his office, and likely hadn’t even gotten out of his car. 

A conversation that couldn’t wait, then.

What he did like very much about the moment, not randomly at all, was how it reminded him of his perfect last October. Watching his phone light up with messages from Holden. Some containing praise for his performance the night before. Others instructing him on where to meet, and possibly a couple of things to bring.

Right now though, instructing his rapidly heating body to just take it easy, he picked up the phone and tapped to answer.

“Sean?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“I know you and him get along, but I-I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep meeting him. It’s fine once in a while but— honestly, the more chances you give either of them, the worse the potential outcome.”

His heart went out to him. Alastair and Cecelia really had a lot of work to do where their son was concerned.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. It as on the tip of his tongue to add, “Your dad’s really turned a corner.” But why push it. 

“I promise it’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Holden said with quiet finality. “Then enjoy your dinner with him. Wear something revealing.”

He laughed, shaking his head. 

*

Whether by coincidence or design, he was set for an especially packed week. The commercial property sale in Copenhagen they were putting together via a JP Morgan deal was finally on its feet. It could walk, but it was where it needed the personal attention for which their firm was renowned. The same attention that had taken him to St. Bart’s the year before to speak in person with Harry Bertrand, when that family had sought a strong showing of commitment before signing with them. It wasn’t a family estate being structured for sale this time, still when it came to property transactions of this kind, that revitalized whole sections of a city, commercial sellers wanted no less coddling.

His schedule, in addition to the stuff he had to see from his parents, was nonstop that week, and that was if no travel came up. 

Despite that, he had prioritized the three meetings following Arthur’s.

So with all three floors of their offices buzzing with heightened activity, first thing when he got in was his secretary Rachel informing him that one, the meeting for that morning was still on, and two, his father had called.

He froze in his tracks. He was in the middle of her office and not able to hide his reaction.

Rachel smiled from where she stood beside her desk. She’d been executive assistant to his father, in addition to having been at the firm since starting as a receptionist. She probably understood their family dynamics more than he did. She held up a calming hand.

“He was just checking on whether you’re still having the meetings.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, knowing it was a pointless, knee-jerk reaction. “What does _he_ mean?”

“I was informed by the staff at the magazines that he left instructions with the editors to show you everything in case you asked to see the publicity. He’s just following up.”

But why? What difference did it make whether he saw the plans or not when he hadn’t been consulted before they were put in place?

He resisted taking the bait. He just thanked her and continued to his office.

“The editors are still more than willing to come over, if you’d prefer.”

“No,” he said, turning the knob, more sure now than when he’d set the meetings that he didn’t want them in his office. After Arthur, he just didn’t want any further associative memories. He still had to work in here when all this was over. “I’ll be with them in twenty minutes.” 

And on the way, he’d start counting to infinity.

—

Twenty minutes later he was at the Beverly Hills offices of the company that handled his family’s personal matters. Home maintenance, travel, personal purchases, vacations if they ever took those… and overseeing press.

Gradient’s offices were all mahogany and glass cabinets, overstuffed leather sofas, and crystal decanters everywhere. In all the years he had been frequenting the office for any manner of personal reasons, he had never noticed how comforting the decor was meant to be. Or how much alcohol was made available. Now of course he noticed and totally understood why.

Everyone in the room shook hands: him, the four editors from the magazines, two from each publication, and Ev Nielsen, Gradient’s general counsel and a long time family friend. They took seats around the office’s long coffee table, as for a meeting as casual leaning as this one hoped to be, conference rooms and the like would have sent the wrong impression. They got right down to it.

Vanity Fair started off the meeting by laying out their concepts for how they planned to present the feature, a big celebratory push for the next generation of the Wilson family. Parents, heir, a little look to the past, what the wedding signaled for the future. The latter which he found especially odd because there was nothing in there about Sean's family or the Jackson family’s history. As if the family didn’t exist, or that nothing they had done so far, like raising a son who had had the courage to come out as gay in major league professional sports, warranted profiling. Besides noting that it was in fact the same Sean Jackson, the planned feature had no other instance of the word Jackson anywhere, really, except where it appeared as Sean’s last name.

Looking at the concepts, he felt no different than when Sean had first told him about them in Beverly Hills. Outside his body and wondering whose wedding this was supposed to be. Feeling slightly less adrift because he was actually taking a look at the plans, but not much so. 

But it nothing else, a moment very much needed as an antidote to the giddiness he’d felt in not seeing his father’s signature anywhere in Arthur’s file. 

The senior editor from the magazine was explaining that the idea behind publicizing events like his wedding were for posterity. People liked icons and continuity. And where the modern trend was to tear them down, the timeless reality was that they were wanted more than ever.

“And in this moment in cultural time,” the white-haired editor said to him, in a perfectly serious manner, “a same-sex relationship like yours, in a family like yours, respected, philanthropic, enduring, is about as iconic as it gets.”

“And let’s not forget that it’ll be Sean Jackson on the other side of the officiating minister,” the VF junior editor added with a smile. “A true icon of his times. That puts the factors right off the charts.”

Yup. Plug in any two “icons” and it worked.

What was now going through his mind was something from very far away. 

He was suddenly remembering seeing as a teenager the magazine features of his parents’ own wedding, including the one in Vanity Fair. There had been nothing to feel then, the images just more photos of his parents, the write-ups just words on a page. 

But slotting Sean in there now, replacing a face he more or less took for granted with the one of the most secret and exceptional lover of his life, made everything…deflate. Lifeless in comparison to real life.

And then because karma or whatever loved a good laugh, the junior editor suddenly lifted a finger, said, “Wait for it…” and was suddenly dipping into his briefcase to produce, what else, a vintage copy of the very issue with his parents wedding.

As in, the thing he had just been trashing.

The magazine was placed on the center table. On its cover was his father walking with Ben Hanan into the Bear Sterns financial building in New York. 

Murmurers of appreciation rose around the table.

The magazine was gently pushed toward him. He didn’t reach for it.

He hadn’t looked at it in over…two decades now. Not since he was fifteen, to be exact, the year his parents finalized their divorced. Two copies of the magazine still lived in each parent’s library.

He lifted his gaze to see expectant looks all around the table and somehow conjured up a smile.

“Wow,” he said, generically.

“Indeed,” the Robb editor replied from beside him. “May I?”

“Of course.”

The editor turned the magazine toward him and gently peeled back the pages, now cream-toned with age. From the corner of his eye, he watched the images appear. And he suddenly, very much, did not want to see them. 

But before he could think up an excuse to not have this happen, the pages were open and they were all looking at them. 

It felt nothing like seeing them as a teenager.

“You’re the spitten image your dad!” the Robb editor cried, laughing and holding open the pages. “This is amazing.”

“Son of a gun,” his colleague added from the other side of him,

The senior VF editor leaned in, peering at the pages. “Well, now I get it,” he said.

“Get what?” he asked immediately.

The editor pointed to the picture of his dad in his wedding tux. “Why Alastair was so excited when he came in.”

He looked at the page and then back at editor, sure he’d misheard. “He went into your offices?”

“Sure.”

“What for?”

“Well, why do you think?” the editor asked, chuckling. “And we’re big fans of his, so you can imagine the stir it caused. We had to get half the older secretaries off the floor.”

The editor paused for the other men around the table to join him in his amusement, while he stared at him, feeling like someone had hit an actual pause button he didn’t know existed in reality.

“But he was…” the editor paused again, apparently very moved. “He was like the proudest dad in the world.”

He just stared, making himself sit very still, and to not try and swallow the suddenly lump that had formed in his throat like some cornered criminal.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the white-haired editor.

“You know how usually it’s the mothers who’re just _on you_ about these things,” the editor continued. “Well, Alastair was worse. He wanted the whole story, what we had in store, how it was going to look. And he left instructions for us to speak directly with Holden and get his opinion on every aspect.” The editor laughed and shook his head. “It was heartwarming, I must admit. We all know how it is when our kid is getting married, I suppose. I just didn’t expect it from him.”

He had no idea what expression was on his face. But it must have been the right one because all the editors around the table were smiling back at him.

And then for the next several minutes despite being all men in the room, all four of them, including Ev Nielsen, who was usually shrewd and dry as dust, commenced to swoon over the pages, sharing opinions on everything from the famous guests posing for the camera in that distinct, haughty Seventies way, to the noticeable changes over the years to the Waldorf Astoria.

“I can see why, I can definitely see why,” Ev kept murmuring. Why it was all so heartwarming for Alastair, he guessed? And as God was his witness, he could swear Ev was getting a little choked up.

This was crazy.

Not soon enough, The Robb Report’s team was at the wheel, and for a magazine that usually generated as much excitement from him as grocery shopping, he turned very eagerly to hear what they had to say. 

And simply pretended not to see the magazine left lying on the table.

—

By eleven he was back at his office, swearing silently that the morning’s meeting with the editors had been bullshit, pure bullshit, and preparing for a twelve o’clock meeting with the Copenhagen deal team. He was also on the phone with Elliot.

“Holden,” Elliot was saying, _very_ bossily. “It’s not rocket science. It’s men’s clothing. You do it every weekend, so don’t tell me this is hard!”

“I know, Elliot, I know. It’s- it’s done. It’s almost done.” _What the fuck._ Was Davey giving this kind of grief to Sean? “It’s sitting right here. I’m looking right at it.”

He looked desperately at the stack of groomswear catalogs he had salvaged from his study and brought back to the office. Now resting on a very far, very small side table. All looking almost as brand new as when Elliot had handed them to him. 

But he was pretty sure that before traveling to New York, in trying to take his mind off seeing his dad at the golf course, he’d at least looked at every page…

“It’s just that this week—”

“Don’t bother, Holden. I don’t care if you’re reorganizing all of Wilson Realty these next few days, you’re gonna give me five minutes to not get pressure cooked over your wedding. I keep telling you that just because Soirée is handling most of it doesn’t mean you don’t have a ton to do. And Sean can’t be responsible for everything on both your ends, I don’t care what you say.”

“That _isn’t_ what I said,” he countered, walking to the side table and defensively rifled the pages. He wasn’t imagining things, he’d done stuff. Almost all of it, in fact. He just had to mark them. “And I do k,now that there’s a ton to do for the wedding, _my_ wedding,” he quickly corrected before he got slammed for that as well.

“It’s weird that you’re having issues calling it your wedding, Holden.”

He let his hand slide from the catalogs. “I’m trying to make it my wedding,” he muttered.

“Can you get them to me today?”

“Oh, hell no.”

“Holden…”

“Wednesday, lunch time,” he said, naming a far enough day, but not too far. “Before the Corliss auction. It’ll be perfect.”

Elliot was quiet. “Wednesday?” he asked acidly.

“It’s perfect.”

Elliot sighed, giving up. “Promise me, on our friendship and my sanity, that you’ll have them done by Wednesday.”

“Hmm,” he pondered. “Both such… tough calls…”

“Don’t fuck with me, you. I’m having irregular heart beats over this. I’m going to have to think up a punishment for you for making this so damned difficult.”

“Think up a good one,” he soothed, turning his back on the catalogs. “You’ve earned the right. I know I’ve been a total pain.”

“And don’t suck up either. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Elliot disconnected while he sighed and tossed the phone on the closest armchair. There was a knock on the door and he called for whomever it was to come in. 

The door cracked open and Craig peeked in.

“Room’s waiting on you, chief.”

Craig’s eyes went straight to the catalogs, a habit he had formed in the last couple of weeks. Craig brought his gaze back with a smile. 

“Almost through?”

“Working on it,” he murmured, walking over to pick up his discarded phone. Tossing it had at least felt good.

He also picked up the JP Morgan report from his center table. The meeting was an update session with the team followed by a JP Morgan conference call later. This one he could kind of fake his way through. The next one, not so much. Therefore it was time to put any and all thoughts about grey-haired gentlemen sitting around cooing over his dad wanting his wedding.

And really, what did it matter that his dad was running around feeling whatever because “his son” was getting married, or that they resembled each other at thirty-eight, or that Ev Nielsen was getting sentimental in his old age. The point of getting information and copies of the publicity had been achieved and the following day’s meeting should prove just as fruitful.

While he had been pep talking himself, Craig had walked over to this desk and was now placing something on it. 

Craig retracted his hand to reveal an iPhone sitting on the desk. 

He met Craig’s eyes. Craig’s smile widened.

“Did you pick one up?” Craig asked.

He shook his head. “I haven’t had the chance.”

“Well, I picked one up for you.”

Slowly, he walked over to the desk, his eyes on the phone like something he had never known existed. This couldn’t be more timely. And could he forward texts in addition to calls? He hadn’t had a chance to ask Craig…

“Hey, so uh, are you still planning on having that engagement party Geffen wants to throw you?”

“Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“Because we’re probably gonna need some triangulating.”

He moved his eyes from the phone to Craig.

Craig gave him a very tiny shrug. “I think we know that Geffen’s parties aren’t exactly choirboy practice.”

He didn’t say anything. He had never told any of this friends the reason for Sean’s anger during his absence from LA.

But Craig, ever his doppelganger when it came to matters like this, didn’t seem to need a primer.

“And just to be real about it,” Craig continued. “That Forbes article was like ringing the dinner bell. It’d be bad enough if it was just you, but the two of you together’ll bringing out the crazies.”

Craig swept him a look. “You don’t need me to tell you L.A. isn’t Iowa.”

He went on eyeing Craig and his unfiltered frankness.

Craig smile changed in tenor, but didn’t go anywhere. “Not to worry. Like I said, triangulation. We’ve got your six. Let’s talk later.”

For long seconds after Craig had stopped talking, he felt nothing but his heartbeat in his chest. Opening a drawer, he placed the iPhone in it, pushing it closed with his finger. 

They headed for the door in silence. 

This slice of reality, he hadn’t needed.


	3. Chapter 3

Tuesday was even worse. And worse in complete spite of the morning having started out okay.

Bounced back from the unexpectedness of Monday’s meeting, he’d spent the morning in his office getting briefed on deal memos, and had been kind of enjoying an interview on CNN Money in which a financial analyst for Sachs, who should know better, had been making very misleading statements about the individuals and families on the Forbes list.

He had no idea whether the analyst was being horribly facetious or whether he really had no idea what he was talking about.

It brought back fun memories of the craziness over the weekend in response to the article.

And he could only really move on from the gap of feelings the article generated in him by simply pretending it didn’t exist. _The prince consort._ It was so…bizarre it could only confirm what he’d been telling Elliot for a couple years now, that ever since his dad had retired, both parents were slowly losing their minds.

But over the weekend, he’d enjoyed himself.

Mainstream and online media coverage had been predictable enough, but still fun. Actually, had it been someone else’s life, it might have even been electrifying. 

The major outlets had gone crazy over it, running with story after story like children with cotton candy at a theme park. Most of them seemed to have caught the change in approach the article signified, leading with the “news” that it was the first officially sanctioned mention of their engagement in the press since rumors of their engagement had surfaced, with CNN Entertainment the first to pronounce that that made it an official engagement announcement.

On TV, there had been a lot of congratulating from anchors they didn’t know, which had left Sean snorting under his breath when he didn’t think he could hear. But Sean had been smiling as Kelvin Moore, who was no longer on local news but on the local ABC Sports affiliate, and was still dating Kara, had poetically offered him his congratulations.

“Hey, is he still dating Kara?” Sean had asked him from the living room, which had merely had him shaking his head in the kitchen. His own publicist and he didn’t know.

The online sites, he’d scoured those late at night, had been more fun. The more responsible ones had run boring stories about their “under the wraps” engagement, linking to dozens of photos from Johnston but otherwise regurgitating what everybody already knew. The gossip sites, however, had lit up with creative and very amusing stories about their love that knew no conventions and that had defied the most macho of heterosexual institutions. 

He’d almost rolled his eyes reading that. He wished he’d been going up against the entire NFL when he’d said yes to marrying, Sean instead of just fighting himself.

The trend among those sites had been publishing “unofficial timelines” of their engagement, filling in chunks of time the public knew nothing about, which was most of it, with gut busting speculation. Some sites had speculated that they had spent the last six months buying clusters of private islands around which they would pour pools of champagne for their guests to soak in before the wedding, for a maximum “rich” look; others had suggested it had been months of importing exotic flowers from around the world and storing them in specially designed hot houses for the big morning, and still one more had said they were just flying around their oyster of a world hunting all the Beluga whales so as to not run out of caviar.

_Yeah, but what’s your “theme,” Gawker,_ he hadn’t been able to help thinking.

TMZ, interestingly, had had nothing whatsoever to say about the publication except to say that it had happened. Which, considering how they followed Sean around, made him suspect that they had something bigger up their sleeves. Probably that they had a video camera in his condo. The last piece of wedding related news on the site had been from a couple weeks ago saying that Sean had been spotted entering the Beverly Wilshire holding a large leather binder whose contents “we can only guess at.” Also incredibly coy-sounding.

ESPN had gotten in on the action Saturday night by doing an admittedly hilarious segment on “which NFL star is rich enough to be on the cover of Forbes without having to marry into money,” during which they had prompted for tweets. He’d of course immediately sent in an anonymous one. It had read, “Those guys at Forbes had to *beg Sean Jackson to marry into money just so they could have him on the cover of Forbes, y/n?” It had gotten read on air and had gotten him a round of hell yeahs from the anchors. 

Sean, who had been glued to his offseason binder all weekend and looking completely hassled by what he was pretty sure were just letters, dates, and from what he could tell, very nice CGI paintings of him for ad campaigns, one of which he might just take, hadn’t seen him send the tweet. But when it got read, Sean had frowned at his binder, instincts apparently telling him there was something about the tweet the ought to be paying attention to.

“That’s the best tweet of the night,” he’d said to Sean. “And those jocks know it.”

At which point Sean had stopped guessing, briefly closing his eyes in disbelief, before going back to looking hassled.

Ultimately though, it was E News that had struck closest to the truth. The anchors, chatting like drunk friends in a bar and making as much sense, had reported that aside from the “chunk of rock” on fiancé Holden Wilson's finger, no official statements had been made about Sean Jackson’s engagement, that was until this past week. That although TMZ had reported a rumor that wedding invitations had been sent out, it had all been just rumor until that Thursday, “when the billionaire Wilson family expressed their love for Sean by putting him on the cover of Forbes magazine.”

“Well done, Sean Jackson. And nice move, Wilson fam.”

That one hadn’t gotten a flicker of attention from Sean. But it was the one that refused to leave him.

E had correctly guessed that his parents had had been behind the publication, but not knowing the details, had assumed it had been done out of love.

That, more or less, had brought him back down to reality. 

And brought him to Tuesday afternoon and his lunch at Oliver’s Prime.

—

So the morning having gone well, he’d kept a standing lunch.

Once a month he joined a group of industry colleagues for lunch. The purpose of which was to exchange intel on the state of international real estate markets. It was always routine, relatively low key, but always an enjoyable mix of business and pleasure. It should have been a good afternoon to follow a good morning.

But his instinct all morning had been to cancel his attendance. But it hadn’t made sense and he’d attributed it to lingering feelings over his Monday meeting with the editors. 

Not wanting that meeting to have that much of an impact, he resolutely got in his car at lunch hour and drove to the restaurant.

So without really thinking about it, headed to his first real outing among his own kind since the Forbes article had spread far and wide.

One p.m. sharp, he was strolling up to the restaurant’s doors with five of his colleagues, two from Sotheby’s, one Christie’s, another from the Grosvenor Group, and a final one from Coldwell Banker. The usual lunch crowd was churning through the doors and they said hellos as they entered. 

Despite his unsettled mood, or maybe because of it, he failed to notice the looks he was getting. Not until they were inside and had reached the host’s podium, when he noticed that something was amiss. A hush had fallen over the dinning room.

Glancing behind him, he thought that a major celebrity had walked through the doors, and was surprised to see the number of eyes on him. A couple of the executives he was with snickered. 

He turned a perplexed look at them but was interrupted by the maitre d’ approaching and saying, “Right this way, sirs, madame. It’s a pleasure to have you join us this afternoon, Mr. Wilson.” At which point he accepted that everybody was looking at him.

Surprise had him silently following. What was different about now from last summer? Everyone already knew he was engaged to Sean. Wending their usual way behind the fluidly moving maitre d’, he got his answer.

They were having to slow down their trailing this time, to allow for a number of diners who were actually standing up to congratulate him.

And after several automatic thank-yous, he had to reorient himself to allow what they were saying to actually sink in. It wasn’t what he thought.

“A job well done.” 

“Beautifully handled.” 

“Well done, Holden. Well, done.”

Some were patting his shoulder, asking him to give their regards to Alastair or Cecelia.

They were not, staggeringly, congratulating him on his engagement.

Without a word, he followed his colleagues to their table, always the same affair for six, tucked away in an enclave with deep purple curtains and early Picasso artwork.

He needed another moment to get it straight. People in his family’s circles weren’t seeing the article as an announcement of his engagement. They were under the impression that he’d published it in tandem with his parents as a form of…control over an outsider.

He was so stunned—and he didn’t know why he was so stunned, except that he’d never had a publication about his relationships before, and maybe he had never really understood how people saw them.

And then he started thinking that the only thing that would hurt worse right now would be if his father were to actually walk into the restaurant right then, just to confirm what everybody thought.

No sooner had he finished the idiotic thought than two older gentlemen stood up at the far side of the dining room. He quickly looked over, for a painful heartbeat sure one of them was his father.

It wasn’t.

He looked down at his menu.

Fuck, that was stupid.

He really probably should have listened to his instincts and canceled.

Everyone was seated and he now noticed the shark grins around the table, all five executives barely containing their glee at what they had just experienced.

“That was like when Michael Corleone became the Godfather,” the Sotheby’s executive whispered.

“Can we not do this, please?” he said, knowing it was a losing proposition. “Or at least, order first?”

They ordered first.

While giving their drinks orders, he looked wantonly at the hard liquor selection before permanently removing his gaze. This was not the time to lose his marbles. This wasn’t the _week_ to do so, nothing to gain by devolving into a form of madness before the madness actually began. He was sticking to sparkling drinks all week.

Within minutes of giving their orders, he was having to defend himself. 

The lunches were about the markets, true, but they were also one of the best venues for the freshest gossip on what was happening in their world. And today, like it or not, the gossip was him.

“It’s not that big a deal,” he kept saying in a halfhearted attempt to staunch the topic.

“Of course it’s a big deal,” the director from Sotheby’s said, narrowing her eyes around their drinks arriving and being laid out. “Not everyone can say welcome to the family with a cover on Forbes.”

“You know the thing about you, Holden,” the Coldwell VP said with a smile. “You don’t look like you play hardball. That’s the secret to your success. Hell, to your family’s success.”

The executive from Grosvenor was nodding, who, working for a family firm like theirs, might know something about it.

The VP continued, “You all look like movie stars and have the manners of princes, but let an outsider come near and that person suddenly finds themselves at attention, _paying_ attention, and looking at one damn big rule book.”

“Oh, come on,” he said.

“You come on,” said the Grosvenor exec. “You know families like yours are totally like that.”

“How do Sean and your dad get along?” the VP asked, before he could reply.

“They get along fine.”

“Well, count yourself lucky,” Grosvenor’s said. “‘Cause some fathers would either worship the ground Sean Jackson walks on or treat him as the enemy.”

“That’s a little harsh,” he said. “There’s always a middle ground.”

“Yeah,” the female Sotheby’s director agreed. “I mean, it’s not like he’s some naive girl about to marry a slick European playboy.”

“It’s not about the girl,” the VP said, indicating him with his fork. “In this case, Holden. It’s about the father. Some guy’s about to take his place. You’d better believe it’s gonna be an issue. He’s not gonna want to let Sean replace him. So the better his attitude toward Sean, the easier your life’ll be.”

He just shook his head. “You’re all having a straight moment. You can’t tell me that if any of you is getting married, your _dad_ is gonna have a problem with your spouse…replacing him? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Nooo,” all five of them intoned, startling him. And reminding him that they were all in fact married.

“In that scenario, they guy’s _mother_ will,” the Sotheby’s director said. She stuck out her finger from one direction to the other, to clarify. “With the girl replacing _her._ ”

That got a big nod from the VP. “So if the guy’s lucky, mother and girl get along. But in your case, being the girl, it’s the dad and the guy. Sean replacing Alastair.”

He looked around the table at them and their ridiculous theories. If this were true, then why wasn’t Wil freaking out? Why wasn’t Wil demanding to know him better, or— or making efforts one way or another to treat him worse of better, or… 

He stopped and clenched his jaw, realizing that he was more or less describing what Anne had been through with him.

Avoiding their gazes, he picked up his sparkling ginger. “Well, I’m not the girl.”

That had them all laughing.

“Bottom line though,” said the Christie’s executive. “No matter how much he likes Sean, he’s not going to let him run the show. That’s just fact with Alastair Wilson.”

“I disagree,” the VP replied. “That’s _if_ Alastair genuinely likes Sean.” The VP turned to him across the table. “So does he _genuinely_ like Sean? Not just get along, but genuine like.”

He contemplated not answering. 

But he had started having trouble breathing easily, with his heart knocking about in his chest.

Why on earth did he continue to have these pointless, naive responses?

“Holden?”

“I…think so.”

“Well, here’s how you know. Do they hang out together without you?”

Last summer barged right in, watching Sean from one cocktail party to the next, so easily talking with his dad, and as easily ignoring his presence.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

“Then you can go to sleep. ‘Cause it’s golden time for you. Men like Alastair respect men they like, and he’ll let Sean take over some family stuff.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It is not bullshit,” Grosvenor’s countered. “Definitely not bullshit.”

He looked at the executive. The Brit smiled at him.

“And that is great news for you, Holden,” the Sotheby’s director said.

“All right, people,” her colleague added, picking up his glass. “A toast to Holden’s engagement. For accomplishing what us straight sports fans only dream of.”

Despite himself, that brought a smile to his face.

“Here, here,” they said, chuckling. 

They drank, and lowered their glasses.

“Sean is definitely in for it though,” the toast maker then said. “No more party NFL lifestyle, no more hanging out on teammate’s yachts. It’s power breakfasts, industry luncheons and goddamned LACMA fundraisers from now on.”

Everyone was laughing.

“New playbook all around,” Christie’s exec said. “His new life’s gonna make him wish he was getting sacked by the entire Broncos defense every night instead.”

He just smiled and shook his head. Eventually the conversation would move on. It already was.  
But it turned out his weird week had just gotten warmed up.

—

Things got even worse after lunch.

He had the second of the meetings, this time with the managers of Sky 9, the private carrier his mother had contracted to ferry their guests out of the U.S., and yes his dad had been by their offices too. So he listened to the same gushing happiness from all within speaking distance. 

Editors from Plane & Pilot, a magazine he felt even less about than golf and The Robb Report put together, and really hadn’t cared to see what they had in store—they were merely carrying the features about the new model Sky 9 crafts—showed up. And one guess what they were like.

His dad was amazing, this wedding was going to be amazing, his _life_ was amazing.

Until he could have just gotten back into his car and exploded.

As soon as he returned to the office he asked Rachel to reschedule the third of the meetings, with the PR firm his mother had retained, for next week. He didn’t care if his mother found out or how it looked. He wasn’t about to deal with this again tomorrow.

Then he stood staring out at Santa Monica Boulevard, just feet from where Arthur had stood two nights before, and wondered what the hell was happening this week. What the hell was his dad doing?

His phone sat heavily in his pocket. He suddenly felt it, like it had just been deposited there.

—

So that by the time of the second of the JP Morgan meetings took place that afternoon, he was in prison with his conscience.

All the Copenhagen property meetings this week were for due diligence on the sale. Naturally, every so often the phrase “due diligence” was mentioned. So his brain had started doing that thing where it turned work into a weapon against him. Latched onto innocuous something and gave it a sly double meanings. 

Thankfully, it was a conference call, so he wasn’t sitting in the midst of JP Morgan lawyers trying not to appear distracted. Whereas their firm’s employees had probably already determined that being in a long term relationship had long driven him crazy. Craig, being the champ of an executive that he was, had long noticed his state, not as on point as in the pervious day’s meeting as he was, and was doing a stellar job of deflecting attention off him.

And this particular gimmick of his brain’s frustrated him especially because he loved his work. Despite his parents insanity of late, he absolutely loved working for his family’s firm. He was proud of their generational achievement and he enjoyed the problem-solving involved in selling real estate—finding the right, appreciative buyers for cherished estate homes and valued commercial properties, finding banks to help save and secure those properties. 

But before he was done with the thought another popped up that yes, he and his father had always had this, remember? This, and a number of other things, as connecting bonds. 

The way his father was making an effort in connecting with his future husband. Inviting him out to dinner and introducing him to all his friends.

So that like in some kind of twisted drinking game, whenever the term “due diligence” was uttered he was poked inside his mind as if by a cattle prod to, yeah, stop ignoring his own due diligence.

But he wasn’t ignoring it though. Quite opposite, he was handling things for the first time since seeing his wedding invitations. He had listened to what his father had to say, Sean had sat with his mother, even if he didn’t need the details, and now he was checking all the moves both parents had made for publicity on the wedding. Next week when he sat with the PR firm, a meeting to which he would make Sean come along, he would be abreast of everything.

But even while counting off his achievements, the quiet, never-lying voice inside him was saying nice try.

_Your due diligence is on your phone. You haven’t been deaf for two days._

He wanted to plant his face in his report and groan until it went away. Had he been alone, he would have done it. Instead he sat upright in his seat, kept track of the checklist as the legal team went page by page.

He had to wonder whether Sean had broken him. He didn’t used to be like this.

But he just quietly sat there heaping curses on his conscience for being foolish. And a pushover. And just…hoped to later retreat into a quiet, not so conscious place.

— 

When he got home that night after having texted Sean to ask where he was, because if it was Malibu he was headed there, he gratefully walked into to his condo where Sean was. Sean was reading in a warmly lit cocoon of fresh cut orchids, scented candles and that soft gonging music that always played in spas.

He walked straight into him, meaning to stop somewhere beforehand but not managing it and instead finding himself crawling on him and that working just as well. Sean was conveniently seated in a wide reading chair with his legs on an ottoman. So he crawled and laid between his legs, cocooning himself in their sweatpants-clad warmth, and still fully clothed, turned on his side, burrowed his head into his stomach, and let out one huge beast of a sigh.

He squeezed closed his eyes and went completely still.

Sean slowly lifted the book he was reading—he could be totally crazy but he could have sworn it was _Eat, Pray, Love_ —and looked down at him.

The book went down on a side table and Sean’s arms came around him, tightening in a way that only he had ever figured out how to make so perfect. Only heaven could prove better.

The sound of the ticking clock, following him all week, could be heard somewhere.

Sean slipped his hand inside his jacket and squeezed his waist, then left its heavy weight there.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

He nodded slowly. But kept his eyes closed.

“You look better than I remember this morning,” Sean mumbled, and was lowering his head. “And you smell even better.”

“Like a burning tire?” he croaked, into the warmth under Sean’s arm. “Because I feel that that’s what frustration would smell like.”

“Lemme get in there and I’ll let you know.”

And Sean began nuzzling the side of his neck, moving behind his ear, groaning and rumbling all the while that frustration was going to be his new favorite bedside lotion, and in spite of having no business doing so after the fucked up, confusing two days he had just had, he started laughing.

When he was able to make himself stop, his eyes still closed, he discovered that his thoughts were staying off. So he kept them closed.

Until Sean leaned down and dropped a soft kiss on his mouth. 

“Care to tell me what’s on your mind?” Sean gently asked.

He slowly shook his head. 

“It just hurts less to think this way,” he said hoarsely.

Sean touched his nape and stroked the hair there. The clock ticked off several more slow, dragging seconds. He turned his face a little more into Sean’s stomach. The hand on his waist undid his vest buttons, joined the rhythm of the one massaging his nape. He kept his eyes closed.

*

“So what’s in them?”

In the three weeks since the night on the boat, Sean had never once asked him what his father had been texting about. Or even what his father had said that night. 

So it was weird that Sean was now staring his docile blue gaze at him, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, rocking from side to side.  

He was having a dream.

He knew it because aside from the direct question, there was no way in his right mind he would be sitting in a life boat in the middle of a dark ocean, with or without Sean. 

But that was exactly where he was.

Even in the dream he was clutching the terrifyingly _slick_ rubber sides of the small dingy and staring a freaked-out hole into Sean’s face.

Sean was reclined against the far side, the way he would remember him from their last adventure on the water had he left the safety of clinging to him to move around to his front. 

Sean was dressed in pornographically short deck shorts, wearing a deliciously wet T-shirt which he distinctly remembered wishing Sean had been wearing on Super Bowl Sunday when Davey and his other hot friends had poured ice water on him. 

Sean’s feet, on either side of him, were clad in undelicious, wet, _untied_ deck shoes that were generating fissures of terror through him at the thought that if Sean got up, he might slip and fall into the water.

So, all ounces of his attention strictly held, hyper-sexualized, dream-Sean continued.

“The messages on your phone. What’s in them?”

The waves nudged the boat, tipping it, from side to side. His heart kicked painfully in his chest.

“Who’s Ian?”

He woke up.

—

His bedroom was dark and silent. 

He sat up reflexively, or tried to, and was forced back down by Sean’s steel beam of a right arm lying across his stomach. 

It was still Sunday night. Sean was back in from Malibu. And he wished he could say that all his sweat was from their earlier exertions. 

Then instinctively, he turned and checked that Sean was indeed still asleep and not actually lying awake with his eyes on him, interrogating him. Sean’s eyes were closed and the man was blissfully asleep.

He dropped his head back down to the bed, throwing his arm over his eyes and letting out a huge breath.

And now his subconscious was being a jerk.


	4. Chapter 4

Wednesday morning, he blocked off forty minutes at the office and went through Elliot’s catalogs. The handover was lunch hour at the Carriage House where Elliot’s law firm was having a company lunch, and if he somehow didn’t get a chance to get through the catalogs, he’d be better off going on the run.

But putting as much attention to studying the clothiers as he had anything all week, he begrudgingly started to see a certain method to the madness. Being able to settle on whether he’d be going with traditional black and silver, blues and creams like Craig had hinted he preferred, or other choices in palettes, would actually help him determine an overall color scheme for the ceremony he could suggest to Sean. Not to mention Marissa. And because Elliot had insisted on them visiting the boutiques last week, he knew what most of these items actually looked and felt like. 

And, once he got this handed over, the pressure would be off for scheduling fittings. They had twelve weeks to go to the wedding, six of those which would be needed for weekly fittings. It would prove easy going on the tuxes angle.

Sometimes, he underestimated Elliot’s smarts. Not always, but sometimes.

And after this weekend he’d find out what Sean and Davey were up to for Sean’s tux, and they could see about coordinating.

*

Calling out a thank you to the valet for letting him use one of their meters, since he was just dropping off the catalogs, he got out of his car and texted Elliot that he was outside. 

Then he slipped the phone back in his pocket and leaned against the passenger side door to wait.

The morning had gone well. Which didn’t alter the fact that he was a mental mess.

And judging by the pattern of the week so far, by day’s end he’d likely be apologizing to his subconscious for calling it a jerk. It had at least been considerate enough to use an eye-candy version of Sean for an avatar. Even if the dark ocean thing had been completely unnecessary. But its point had been made. And made well.

He’d been so sure that taking the meetings would put him in control of his messed up emotions from the past three weeks. He’d thought seeing what his parents had organized would slap cold, hard reality into him.

Instead the meetings had had a different effect. They were trying to… they were sitting in his head like someone trying to pull you in and give you an nice warm hug that you… didn’t want.

He couldn’t believe it.

And he suspected that Sean was aware of it. Sean was aware of _something._ Why else would his subconscious recruit him?

The week was not going as planned and he needed to re-strategize. 

Friday was coming and he had to decide how he was going to approach being in the same space with his father.

The restaurant doors then opened, and glancing at them, thinking it was Elliot, it turned out that he also needed to put a pin in his particular concerns. The nice morning was over and here came his afternoon.

Coming out of the restaurant was a trio of familiar faces. The Hansons, the couple, were friends of his parents, a sharp-tongued duo he had known since high school. And with them was Nicola Moran, Darren’s mother.

Thinking fast, he concluded that the last time he had seen Nicola was at the hospital the night of Sean and Darren’s fight. Where he had rushed to possibly see Sean in physical danger and possibly do something inadvisable. They hadn’t spoken that night, nor did he know whether she had seen him coming out of Darren’s room beforehand. But she had presumably witnessed his freezing out of his father, the very first time he had ever called his family for what it was, and must have been aware that he hadn’t been there bringing flowers to her son.

None of which spoke to pleasant things about to happen. 

Nicola sighted him first and instantly turned her face away, delicately touching her neck and staring into the distance. Steadfastly avoiding his gaze without appearing to be doing so.

Her behavior made him sad. He hand’t meant to hurt her feelings that night and it wasn’t her fault that his mother had led her son on.

He straightened from the side of his car and prepared himself to greet them. 

George Hanson saw him first.

“Well, look who it is. How are you, young man?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And yourselves?”

“Oh, we’re all fine,” Victoria Hanson replied. Neither of them seemed to notice Nicola’s discomfort, whom he was half watching.

No longer able to ignore the situation, Nicola briefly made eye contact with him and pressed her lips until they appeared to smile. 

“Hello, Holden,” she said quietly.

“Hello, Nicola. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.”

Unable to fake interest in Darren’s whereabouts or well-being, no matter Nicola’s state, he simply smiled and nodded and didn’t ask any further questions.

While George handed over their ticket to the valet, Victoria placed a hand on Nicola’s arm, as though wanting Nicola’s full attention as she said, “Well, this is awkward. We all thought you’d be running off with Darren if you were actually going to get _married,_ Holden.”

Nicola lost color. While he did his best not to react at all. 

“Well,” he tried saying mildly. “I don’t really think Darren’s the marrying kind.”

“Neither are you!” Victoria cried, then laughed with no humor whatsoever, then shook her head and waved a hand like it was all just beyond her. “Well look, I know nothing whatsoever about professional sports people, so let’s just hope Cecelia knows what she’s doing.”

“Of course she knows what she’s doing,” George Hanson replied, then turned to him. “Alastair’s over the moon, Holden. Everyone can see he’s not taking this lightly at all. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“Certainly,” he said evenly.

His face was a burning blush. He could feel its heat as if holding his hand up to it.

“There’s no need to feel self-conscious,” George said brusquely. “A lot’s at stake.”

“I understand,” he said quietly, having to put real effort into not letting his eyes wander behind him to the valet who sure were taking their sweet time bringing the Hanson’s car. There was maybe one person ahead of them. 

Then from the corner of his eye, he caught Nicola completely failing to cover that she was quizzically appraising him. Her brow pinched and her eyes flying all over his face. 

He could have told her to get in line, because he’d spent all last summer giving himself that same look in the mirror.

“I-I’m sorry,” she finally blurted out. “But how did you two meet again?”

“At the St. Jude’s leukemia fundraiser a few years ago,” he said casually.

Both Hansons didn’t hide their looks of surprise. And he didn’t know how he stopped himself from sighing. In the right version of the world he supposed “professional sports people” didn’t go to the same functions as they did.

Evidently he could add traitor to his own kind to “manipulator of fiancé” as part of this new persona of his. 

Nicola was frowning a deep, skeptical, frown. 

And then she simply, loftily, looked away, toward the valet, as if suddenly realizing that they were being held up. 

He’d once realized how completely denial of his love for him had shielded him from feeling anything when Sean was gone for the season. Now he realized that fear and insecurity had done the same thing for him last summer.

He was only starting to understand that this summer, nothing whatsoever was coming to save him.

Finally, the Hansons’ big gleaming silver Rolls was pulled up to them. The car quite suited George. 

He complimented him accordingly and George mumbled a response.

Nicola was already moving into the back seat, the door being held open by a valet. Once in, she began rooting around in her handbag like she was diligently searching for something. 

She needn’t have worried. He wasn’t about to make her feel any more uncomfortable than she already was.

Victoria got in front, waving a goodbye at him. “See you at the wedding, Holden, if not sooner,” she called, followed in suit by her husband. He raised a hand in farewell.

He watched as they drove off, pulling onto Avenue of the Stars, and relaxed back against his car. A second later Elliot pushed open the restaurant doors.

“Was that Nicola Moran I saw just now giving you the evil eye?”

“Yeah. Apparently I sinned by not being engaged to Darren instead of Sean. Can you believe that?”

Elliot stopped and gaped in shock. 

“Are you— is she kidding me? Okay, why doesn’t she just marry Alastair or Cecelia herself already and get it over with. That way she doesn’t have to depend on Darren getting into the family, she can guarantee a place all by herself!”

He looked over his shoulder at the boulevard, toward the direction they had gone, into Bel Air.

“I kind of feel sorry for her,” he said, turning back to Elliot. “Darren and my mother did lead her and everybody on.”

Elliot rolled his eyes so hard he had to close them. 

“Oh, for the love of—”

But he cut himself off. Then he stood there with his eyes closed, shaking his head as if refusing a spoonful of something nauseating. 

Thus recomposed, Elliot extended his hand. 

Wondering what had him so disgusted, he turned around and reached into the passenger window and picked up the catalogs from the seat.

He’d tied up the stack with a red bow, and now handed them over with great pleasure.

Elliot took the lot, a skeptical look on his face. Taking one end, he then pulled and unraveled the bow with great irony. Elliot could actually accomplish such a thing. 

He bent his head to it and spent a fair amount of time rifling through the tagged pages. 

“Hmm,” Elliot said. “You added Stojan Antonov at Duncan Quinn, all by yourself.”

“He made a point of requesting to make my tux a few weeks ago,” he muttered. “And you don’t have to say it like that.”

“Like what,” Elliot asked, for a moment pinning him with his deceptively warm brown eyes. “Like I’m impressed you gave some thought to your wedding details? Crazy me.”

But now that Elliot was standing much closer to him, looking at him. And he could see very clearly the look in his eyes. 

Which he might properly describe as hunted.

Elliot pointed toward the boulevard. “They are _not_ that important.”

He shook his head. 

Elliot lowered the catalogs and came closer, getting on his left side and blocking off the view from the valet, affording them more privacy. He placed the catalogs on the hood of his car and stared down at his lowered head. “Sean isn’t mad about the Forbes article, is he?” Elliot asked softly. 

He spared him a narrowed look. 

Ever since Sean had left town so suddenly in January, Elliot had convinced himself that Sean was a prima donna in need of taking down a notch. He didn’t even have the energy to correct the perception.

“So speak,” Elliot said with concern.

“You will not believe the week I’ve been having.”

“As in, Monday and Tuesday?”

He nodded, then glanced at Elliot. “Sean’s arranged for us to go into Bel Air this weekend to see my parents.”

Elliot digested the news for a moment.

“Is this officially part of you letting him handle them like you said last week?”

He nodded.

“So it’s a good thing.”

He hesitated, then nodded again.

“Because you said to remind you that it was.”

“It is,” he said quietly.

“But…?”

He started staring at his shoes. He wanted to do this. He…felt he could finally talk. This week had handed him his ass.

But now was not the time.

Lifting his chin toward the restaurant, he said, “I hate to send you back in there early, but I need to get back to the office.” He turned to Elliot. “You’re gonna be at Corliss, right?”

Elliot nodded, his eyes on him.

“We’ll talk then,” he said with finality.

“Promise you will, Holden.”

He nodded his agreement.

“Say it.”

“I promise I’ll talk at the dinner tomorrow.”

Elliot slid the catalogs off the roof of the car, then stood there staring compassionately at him.

“I’m not dying,” he said in protest.

“No, you aren’t. But you know what you look like right now? Like your dad at Geffen’s reception. So yes, you’d better come prepared to talk, or we can all forget about surviving this damned summer.”

“I just said I would,” he cried.

Elliot huffed. But satisfied, he turned to leave, his booty under arm. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about your punishment,” he said over his shoulder. “Because I haven’t.”

—

He returned to a still humming office. Trying not to walk around like a person with a bullseye on his forehead.  
With Sean in Malibu that night and Thursday night, he planned on taking home a heap of work and locking himself in his study. Alternatively, he’d just stay at the office until he had to go reveal uncomfortable things to Elliot. And then maybe return and crawl back under the heap.   
Basically, anything that would take his mind off his life, his phone messages, until Friday. 

What he did take time to do was something he had put off too long. He had Kate’s wedding invitation in a case in his desk drawer. And he wanted so badly to meet her for lunch and regale her with hilarious and wonderful stories from his time in Johnston.  
But it was going to a horrible lunch if he had to sit there and try not to talk about any of the craziness that was going on. And he was _not_ going to talk about it. He had had enough of taking his problems to her as if that was all their friendship was all about. If he was starting to face certain realities and take control of his situation, keeping her a good friend and not a shrink was part of it.  
But taking control there didn’t alleviate his stay low and work need.  
So that at three p.m. when Craig came into his office, looking focused and trailed by one of the firm’s attorneys, he felt that the universe had heard his pleas and had just sent a custom-made, twenty-four crisis for the express purpose of saving his brain cells.

And here he’d been hoping no travel would pop up and compound the week. Shame on him.

Craig was in the middle of convincing him it was necessary he go, while he was on the intercom asking Rachel to arrange a five p.m. corporate flight.

Craig, recognizing the mood, and never one to waste his remarks on the obvious, pointed to the drawer where head put the iPhone before he left.   
He grabbed it and put it in his brief.

*  
For a week in which they had a moratorium from everywhere—Soirée, Holden’s parents, even from themselves—it was turning out to be a rough one. And it was still only Wednesday.

The good news was that there hadn’t been any fallout, for lack of a better word, on his end about the Forbes article. No one who knew him personally had had their senses dinged over it, especially not his family who generally took publicity about him in stride. It did surprise him a little that Davey hadn’t text about it, seeing as Davey had taken to anything to do with Holden like a paid whore did with clients.

What he’d gotten were texts from Hidigger and a few other wise asses on the team, a couple of them ballsy rookies, which would have to be shut down come fall, congratulating him on bagging himself “a rich one.” Holden’s family wealth appeared to be the theme even ESPN was going with. All a bunch of losers. He’d also gotten a phone call from his financial advisor who had apparently ejaculated at the sight of him on the cover of Forbes.

Paula, unaware of the intent of the article and probably caring even less, had added her voice to the mix, calling to tell him that the article made him look better than he actually was and was the cover image Photoshopped.

“Because if it’s not,” she’d said, her voice like a pointed stick in his side. “Please continue doing whatever you’re doing to maintain your season physique so you won’t have to work so damn hard come August.” He’d had to break her heart by telling her the image _was_ from last August.

Finally, he’d run into a couple of sports agents at the players association offices who had looked a little more hungrily than usual at him. But since everyone knew that Paula would scalp any agent who tried to poach him, the congratulating had been very hands-off.

So all in all, it had ended up being fine. Cecelia had done what she felt she had to and his people were none the wiser. Potentially heated conversations avoided. With the bonus result that he had scored a meeting for the four of them. One where they were going to all finally be in the same house, having the same conversation, at the same time. Actually _talking_ to each other, and not passing messages around to each other.

Holden’s state of mind was somewhat of an issue, but he felt that even that was proving manageable. Obviously Holden was still having a difficult time dealing with the thought that his dad was human, that _he_ was human where his dad was concerned. Still, all told, he felt that Holden had been doing a tremendous job of holding himself together since they had returned from Johnston. 

The only thing he wasn’t a hundred percent behind was Holden’s continuing refusal to talk about the events on the boat. And now putting the topic on the no-fly list for the weekend. But if he had learned anything over the years with Holden, it was that Holden didn’t respond well to being pulled. He only ever needed an initial push. And he thought that Alastair had given a great one.

When it came to being human, he trusted in the resilience of love above just about anything else.

Rough week or not, they was making progress.

Now it was his turn to focus on this meeting he had spent all weekend dreading.

And then…it registered that Kara was talking to him. And that she had since stopped.

She was now staring at him in the new way she had acquired ever since his coming out. Like she constantly suspected him of harboring far out, dangerous thoughts.

He amused himself for a second thinking he’d one day tell her he was having a baby and wanted a press conference to announce it.

“Hi,” he said softly. Hoping he didn’t have a funny look on his face.

She was wearing a bright green dress that kind of hurt his eyes to look at. She was also wearing a look of outright concern.

“Is everything all right?” she asked nervously.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.

“Because we can move this if it’s not.”

“No, no, I’m cool. We can’t keep pushing my schedule.”

She nodded, while the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened and he followed her out.

So far this week they’d had a couple of small meetings on PSAs for a parenting group and one for the league. He’s also sat with a director for his foundation who had made him feel a little better that he wasn’t entirely a slacker for not having opened its doors. She’d assured him it was better not to rush this kind of work and that due to their wedding this summer, Holden was okay with initiating in the fall. 

This afternoon’s meeting, however, was a major one. For one of the three photoshoots that had survived his schedule’s cuts. He needed to get it done. These endorsement ad campaign meetings, the big interviews, all had to start getting into the in-progress column fast or this offseason was looking to be a problem in one ways than one.

Waiting for them by the doors was an ad agency executive, a thrilled and very interested look in her eye as she smiled at him. He shook the hand she stuck out, stood while both women made introductions, and then he and Kara were ushered in.

—

Half hour later, furnished with designer water and seated in a conference room with a handful of the ad agency’s executives, he was starting to regret how quickly he’d dismissed Kara’s offer of postponement.

His fears about how he was responding to this ad campaign hadn’t been a few days’ fluke. 

Set in front of him and Kara were the art concepts and rollout strategy for the Patek Philippe campaign. Kara was sitting straight up in her chair, her hair in its loose, attractive ponytail, looking pumped to finally be starting his schedule and with a big ticket item no less. 

His mood should have been the same. But he was having the fucking worse time in the world…absorbing this stuff.

He couldn’t remember when last he’d concentrated this hard off the field. Since the start of the presentation, he’d been pouring as much attention on it as it had taken to decode the Dallas Cowboys defense in last season’s opener.

It shouldn’t have been anything like this. Ad campaigns, no offense to all the work being put in by the agency, were straightforward. And these concepts were the usual ideas. CGI-paint renditions of him doing mundane things, which people whose business it was to know, he supposed, had defined as befittingly masculine. Gourmet cooking, posing next to a German-engineered car, shaving shirtless in a pair of jeans—something he couldn’t see why he’d first get half dressed to do—and sailing. They all looked fine and any one of them would look good in a magazine.

Between spending time in Malibu and Holden working overtime on this new deal he was closing, he’d had enough mental space to prepare. He’d even scored a couple scalp massages from a preoccupied Holden while looking over the ideas. So he should have been in the perfect place to decide how he felt about them. And finally, he liked Patek Philippe watches. The one he was to launch was a classic series the company was reintroducing. He had already tried it out and loved it. It handled great in the ocean.

So normally it was walk in there, take a seat, and have an easy, point and pick conversation about which ones to go with and why.

But nothing was working for him, so that keeping track of details like choice of photographers, mood and setting, which magazines would carry the images, all things which would require his contractual approval, were like trigonometry to him.

It all just felt…not him.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the laid out portfolio.

Not him? He’d never _been_ in any piece of advertising. These were just images splashed on billboards and magazine pages that represented an _idea_ of him, of what the public wanted to see. And it wasn’t something that had ever bothered him. It was just…retirement money.

So what the fuck was he sitting here getting emotional about?

He almost slid a side look at Kara’s spread, but he caught himself. There was nothing different from his.

The projector screen flickered and a new storyboard was lit up. The ad executives oohed appropriately, before starting to animatedly express their opinions on why it would or wouldn’t work better than the previous one. They had a few more of these to go.

He took a quiet breath, nodding in the right places, trying to feel the energy. 

But it was pointless. He felt nothing whatsoever toward the campaign.

“No, Sean?” 

It was the executive who’d brought them who’d suddenly said.

He smiled diagonally across the table at her. “Maybe.”

That was when Kara noticed that something was up.

Looking askance at the sketches first, she stared as though trying to understand whether they were inherently offensive. When she glanced sideways and caught his eyes, he quit faking interest and gave her a quick apologetic quirk of his lips, hoping his executive fan wasn’t watching.

Kara didn’t react.

Once the copywriters were finished with the slide, she turned a very impressed look at him.

“That was amazing,” she said, sounding like she believed it. “Right, Sean?”

“Yeah, definitely,” he replied.

And avoided the eyes of the executive, who was in fact looking observantly at him.

Kara sat back. “Unfortunately,” she said, sounding regretful enough to fool even him. “We have to cut this meeting short.”

Amidst the surprise and questioning eyebrows, she explained that his schedule had turned extremely time-crunched and “thrown off like crazy, due to _someone_ getting married this summer…”

The tactic worked, and soon the room was enthusiastically congratulating him and talking about the hassles of planning a wedding, especially one as big as what they probably had in mind. 

He didn’t have to fake his responses there.

“Holden, by the way,” his executive fan said, smiling across the table at him, “is absolutely gorgeous. We wouldn’t mind having him for one of our models at all.”

“Both of them,” another executive added, generating interest around the room.

Pushing back his chair, he slowly got up, holding up his hands and shaking his head, trying to not envision the guaranteed disaster that would be Holden wandering around the set of a professional photoshoot.

The executives laughed and let him off the hook. They thanked each other, shook hands, and they were sent off with updated portfolios under their arms.

Shortly after, he was standing at the valet in the underground parking garage and trying to find a way to thank Kara. She told him it wasn’t a problem and that she’d call him later.

“At which time you’ll tell me why I just cut short a meeting we’ve had scheduled since last August, yes?”

He looked sheepishly at her. “Sorry.”

They couldn’t afford for him to respond like this to the rest of his summer schedule. Paula secured these very lucrative endorsements and if she got wind that he was cutting them short and getting nothing accomplished, he was pretty sure Cecelia Wilson would be the least of his problems this summer.

“Don’t apologize, Sean,” Kara briskly said. “There’s no need to. Seriously. I presume it has something to do with the stress Cecelia Wilson’s publicity plans have put you under. Sean, I’d be more than happy to sit down with her.”

“No,” he said, aghast and failing to keep a tone of dread from his voice. “It’s fine. Really. I’m meeting with both Wilsons this weekend and everything should be sorted.”

“Good,” she said, her eyes ablaze. He hadn’t forgotten Holden making a point of telling him that she’s been frustrated in not being allowed to handle the Family Research Council fight last year.

“And I know you don’t want to hear this but, Sean, someone really should be working hand in hand with her to oversee her planned publicity for your wedding. I mean, I get that they have their own machinery in place, but with what she’s got arranged, things are gonna happen fast, with or without your participation. Or consent for that matter.”

He was nodding his understanding.

“And I know you don’t like having your personal life managed, but there’s a reason we recommend to do it. Holden saved your bacon last summer, because frankly that mess wasn’t going to clean itself up.”

Well handled or not, his cutting short the meeting have peeved her.

“Sean, your brand is expanding way past the NFL and whether it’s me or someone else, someone has to take care of it.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

She sighed. “Well, listen, it’s great that you’re going to see her— them— whatever. Please set me on speed dial in case you need anything. Anything at all.”

“I will, Kara,” he promised. “Thanks.”

She started for the valet, then spun back on her very high heels, hand waving, ponytail swishing.

“One last thing, I’m getting questions for your big interviews, Howard Stern, Oprah and the like. You’re still gonna be good to go over those?”

He scratched his beard. God damn it.

He looked up to see that Kara had gone pale. He slowly lowered his hand. And she swallowed so visibly that he almost reached over to give her a hug. 

He instead stamped on a smile and gave her a strong thumbs up.

“Don’t worry about any of it, Kar. All’s good. I look forward to getting those questions. And taking a look at them,” he added, when she still didn’t look convinced.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like being on Howard Stern, and it wasn’t the first time he’d be a guest. But he was pretty sure that this time in the hot seat wasn’t going to be about the usual NFL trash talk. And though he knew it was an honor especially seeing as she had changed her format to only a couple of interviews a year, he was looking forward to an interview with Oprah much like going to the dentist.

It all still felt too soon. Even a year later it didn’t feel like things had stabilized enough for him to be out there talking about how amazing everything was. And it definitely was, but he didn’t think either Oprah or Howard were going to take his sex life as proof of how great being a historical figure in the NFL was. Well, maybe Howard…

And maybe if the interviews were after the wedding…

Kara went on staring at him as if already trying to figure out a way to manage the situation. 

He gave her his most encouraging smile.

“Hey, I’ve had a lot of practice lately putting my private life on display,” he said. “There’re pictures on the internet and everything. So interviews about it? Shouldn’t be a problem.”

She perked up. “Maybe you can have Holden—”

“Except that.”

“Sean, he’s _great_ at publicity. What happened last summer was proof enough, but everything from Johnston only adds to that.”

“That just happened,” he corrected. “Of course pictures were going to end up on the web.”

Kara tilted her head at him, as though just realizing he was a dumbass. 

He raised his eyebrows at her.

She looked away, searching behind her for the valet. The attendants waved at her, and he looked past to see her new car, a special edition BMW 5 Series Holden had informed him, being pulled up.

“Okay, look,” she said, turning back to him. “I’ll see you Monday when you get back. Hopefully things would have settled by then. Good luck,” she said and started for her car, then added over her shoulder, “And let Holden do some talking.”

She strode off before he could get in a word. 

Like to ask what the hell she had meant about Holden and the pictures from Johnston.

The valet rolled up his car. And now he realized he needed a cup of coffee. 

Indicating he’d come back for it later, he slowly started back towards the elevators.

—

“Sean?”

Carefully placing his coffee cup in its holder, he looked out the passenger window, at his fan executive. The one who had greeted him and Kara. She was standing by the valet.

Waving tentatively, she smiled as if wanting permission to come closer.

He indicated for her to hold on a second and pulled clear of the valet. Parked, he watched her come to the window.

She folded her arms on the sill as he lowered the glass. She continued to smile.

He knew when he was being flirted with. But he also recognized when it was happening for a reason. It was just some people’s style.

“Listen,” she said, smokily, with a wry pull of her lips. “I feel you not feeling that campaign.”

“Well,” he said, hedging.

“There’s no need. But…a _couple_ of us had an idea. Look, what you got upstairs, it’s not really even the client’s style. But with your permission I’d like to send along a few renders we had the copywriters make. They’re…” She trailed off, kept her eyes on him, and smiled some more. “Interesting, I’d say. And I think maybe more your style.”

“Oh yeah?” 

He was cautious, but mostly intrigued. She’d been forward from the start, and no question he appreciated forward women. So who knew, maybe she knew something he didn’t. 

“Sure. Why not.”

“Awesome.” She straightened, patting the window sill. “I’ll send ‘em to Kara.”

Then she pulled back, waved her fingers at him and hurried off, apparently not wanting to give him room to change his mind.

He was about to put the car in gear only for his Bluetooth to start buzzing. Then it announced in rich stereo surround that Alastair Wilson was his caller. 

He stared at the display, wanting it to show differently. But nope.

This conversation could have waited. He still hadn’t fine-tuned how to break it to Alastair that Holden had thrown a flag on his weekend plans. He’d planned on giving it one more shot before returning a final word.

Slowly, he stretched his finger until it touched answer.

“Afternoon, Al.”

“Sean, afternoon, how are you?”

“Always good. And you?”

“Very well, thanks. Holden’s been making the rounds with the editors for the wedding publicity, I see.”

Holden had? Well, it was welcome news, definitely.

“How’s he coping otherwise?”

“Ah,” he said in an upbeat manner. “You know your kid, Mr. Wilson. Always a trooper. We’ll get there.”

“That’s what I like to hear. We’re still on for Thursday?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll see you then.”

The call ended with a soft beep.

He remained as he was for some time. A day and half, and most of this tension would be over. 

In the meantime, what a fucking Wednesday afternoon.

He picked up his coffee, blew into the slit still spewing steam, then sat there taking long sips.


	5. Chapter 5

Seven-thirty Thursday evening, he kept his date with Elliot. And he was proud to say that he hadn’t even considered chickening out.

He’d been back in town since that afternoon, slightly fresher from his trip. He had definitely gotten his wish, had worked through last night and this morning. Rested and showered from being at home the last few hours, he was ready to face his evening.

Right then, he was sitting in his car across the street from Sofitel Hotel. 

Elliot was already inside, having texted that he had put in a bid and where was he. He was about to drive up to the valet.

But last night he had missed being woken up in the middle of the night by the culprit from Malibu, and it was his voice he wanted to hear.

And, being Thursday, Sean was about to enter, if he wasn’t already at, dinner with his dad. 

And much to his confusion, he didn’t know how to feel about that.

It seemed impossible that just on Monday, he had felt so much trepidation.

He held his phone for a moment before putting in his call. Sean immediately answered.

“What’re you wearing?” he asked him.

Sean let out a soft chuckle. He could have eaten him up.

“He likes argyle,” he told him, to hear more of it. Sean obliged him.

“I could see that,” Sean said.

“Are you about to go in, or are you there?”

“About to.”

“Who else is there? Can you see?”

“Uh…your godfather, some guy I met last summer, that sleazy guy Larry Nevins…”

He smiled. “Don’t knock him. Larry’s a business genius. And loaded. And he has no kids, so feel free to take that money.”

“Will do.”

Then they were silent together, while he stared at the entrance to the hotel. Where he was about to enter and share with another person what he hadn’t for three weeks.

He lowered his eyes to his hands.

“Where are you?” Sean asked, concern in his voice.

“About to enter a function. Just feeling a little…not myself.”

Sean paused. Then he said, “Did you just come out on TV or something? Did I miss that?”

He smiled. “You have no right to be this awesome.”

“Well, I gotta keep up.”

“Well, go keep up with your bestie.”

“Hang on a sec,” Sean said. “How was London?”

“Cold. Missing something,” he added softly.

“Gimme a kiss, Holden.”

He brought the phone to his lips and smooched it hard. Sean made a growling sound of approval, before ending the call.

He took a breath and reached for the door handle.

*

The Sofitel’s lounge was filled that evening. Dinner was long over and cocktails were flowing freely. Elliot had secured them seating and he had been sitting forward since that time.

Tonight he’d been greeted by pretty much every living soul at the function, at the type of occasion where normally everyone stayed in their self-absorbed circles. Near the patio doors he’d run into the executive from Grosvenor he’d just lunched with, the one who worked for a family firm like theirs. The British executive had signaled him a big thumbs up when they had passed. He wasn’t sure what exactly for, but it had brought their seriously disconcerting lunch back with a bright flash.

Petey meanwhile was somewhere in the venue networking, while event staff were quietly taking silent auction bids from guests at varying degrees of intoxication. He was still sticking to a nonalcoholic drink, this time a sparkling ginger cider, and was just grateful no one had said anything weird.

Elliot was currently giving one of the Blue Sleeve waiters their fresh bid on some auction items. One of which, in a flagrant display of irony, was a chance to be on the cover of Forbes. That one they weren’t bidding on. Elliot had expressed an interest in a Breakfast at Chopard for four in Geneva and they were trying their luck on that one. It would make a nice getaway for them one stress filled wedding planning weekend, of that he was pretty sure.

Before the waiter’s arrival, he’d brought up his encounter with Nicola Moran, which still seemed to make Elliot livid, and asked if Elliot had cut himself off from saying something. Elliot had been about to answer when the waiter had zipped over to tell them that their bid had been overtaken.

Now, as the waiter moved away, he leaned forward again to get Elliot’s attention.

“What were you going to say about Nicola?”

“Not Nicola. Darren.”

Elliot sat back and crossed his legs, leveling his gaze on him. 

“You know in school he used to use the fact that you two were together to sleep with other guys, right?”

He drew a total blank, that being the last thing he’d expected to hear.

“Excuse me?”

Elliot didn’t seem surprised that he didn’t know. 

“It was caché, I guess. Add to the fact that you B-School boys were shrouded in monied mystery, and I suppose it was guaranteed dick, even from the drunk straight guys. I know for a fact that a couple of guys at the law school were letting Darren string them along in the hopes of getting somewhere big right out of the gate, on that basis alone. You know how connections were everything at Stanford.”

He was still stuck at Elliot’s initial statement. 

“You’re telling me that Darren was going around sleeping with other guys while we were together based on the fact that we were together?”

Elliot slowly nodded. 

“That’s…pathetic.”

“No,” Elliot corrected. “For some guys, it was intense. Especially the closeted ones. Christ, even now when I think about it, I want to splash my drink in his face. I don’t think you’ve heard the last of that arrogant prick, Holden.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this in school?”

“You wouldn’t have cared. I know you better than he assumed he did and you certainly weren’t planning on a future with him. Giving him that kind of attention would have only lent credence to his arrogance and made him think he was more important than he was.”

And without knowing, Elliot had described Darren’s precise issue all last summer.

Elliot cocked his head at him. “Have you slept with him since Stanford?”

“We hooked a couple of times right after,” he said, annoyed with himself for even that now. “But until last summer we were just having catch up drinks whenever we ran into each other at functions. It was my mother acting crazy then that even got him this close to me in years.”

“Well, he’s still got a hard-on for that ownership mentality over you, that’s for sure. So you’ll excuse me for not feeling sorry for him or his mother, because nobody led them on.”

But his mother had. She’d definitely given Darren the attention he craved and it had definitely made him feel more important than he was.

“Do you want to find someplace quiet to talk?”

He realized the look on his face was probably saying much. He pointed toward the auction rooms by the bar. “We’d lose our place.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“Elliot,” he began, and was interrupted by a tall guy in a black-grey suit who was suddenly leaning over the back of Elliot’s sofa. For a hot flash he thought Darren had somehow appeared. 

But someone else entirely was smiling across the small space at him.

“Good evening, handsome,” the man said, grinning. “Why, _you_ don’t look too happily engaged.”

“Hi, Vincent,” he said. “How are you?”

“I am fine, Holden. Doing great.” Vincent then clapped his hand on Elliot’s shoulder, grinning down at him. “Hey, Elliot. Still playing wing man, I see.”

Elliot didn’t respond, neither did he roll his eyes, so for Elliot, Vincent might as well not exist.

He himself had gone quiet after his greeting, the easiest way of dealing with this particular ex of his, a plastic surgeon born and raised in Beverly Hills, whose father had been a plastic surgeon like his father before him, being largely to ignore him. His nice hands and overconfident exuberance had been only good for one thing.

“So where’s Sean?” Vincent asked, making a show of looking around. “Seriously, I thought after that Forbes cover your parents would be out parading him on a leash. But I guess it’s just Alastair’s desk he’s tied to. Joking, joking. But seriously, I was hoping we’d be seeing more of you and the boy you love. You two rubbing it in our faces.” Vincent grinned across the small space at him. “Get me?”

And while Elliot simply picked up his drink and drank, Vincent winked at him.

He turned over his hand in a small, what do you want from me gesture, indicating that he had heard and really had nothing to add to their ex-boyfriends status.

Vincent smiled and raised his attractive hands. “I know when I’m not needed.” Then he looked down and said, “Catch you later,” to Elliot in Armenian, before pushing off from the back of the sofa and blending into the guests.

Several seconds followed before Elliot drolly asked, “Is he gone? Can I speak now without fear of getting a tongue shoved in my mouth?”

He laughed softly.

“How, Holden. How did you do it?”

“We never really talked much.”

Elliot began laughing as well, then eyed him with a shake of his head. “You’re terrible. And I think I know now why you’re terrified of bringing Sean into your real life.”

Surprise, slight fear, and a cautionary guardedness, all ballooned inside him, and, as he continued to watch Elliot’s calm gaze, all stayed at heightened levels.

He had come ready to talk about his dad, not this.

“I think it’s pretty obvious by now, Holden.”

“You think I’m scared of what, exactly?”

“Bringing Sean into your real life.”

“I’m not afraid of that.”

“We can chose a different word if you like. But you are something. And I notice you not denying the part about your real life.”

“I’m not denying it because it doesn’t make sense. I’m not expected to bring everyone here to my place at some point, so why am I expected to bring him here?”

“You…really didn’t just say that.”

“The best I can say about that particular situation is that it’s complicated.”

“Complicated is a good alternative,” Elliot said, eyeing him.

“What’s complicated?”

Petey had suddenly joined them, slipping onto the sofa next to Elliot and looking for a waiter. Spotting one carrying a tray, he indicated to him that he was over here.

“Holden’s past,” Elliot said.

“Holden’s past is not complicated,” Petey said spiritedly. “It’s a straight line of fantastic. One that just culminated in that lovely, juicy, head which we’ll just call the Forbes article.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked him, wondering why he was even doing this.

Petey picked up the highball the waiter had brought and thanked him. He took a sip, licked his lips, and said, “Well, I think it’s obvious that your parents are declaring a winner.”

“Oh, that’s…just great,” he said. “You mean like in a race?”

Petey smiled. “Very apt, seeing as your thoroughbred won.”

“I think we can stop calling him by horse names.”

“Horse dick, horse name,” Petey mumbled behind his tumbler.

He geared up to express his feelings on that, but caught the corner looks Elliot and Petey were exchanging and instead pretended he hadn’t heard the comment.

He was getting the distinct feeling that he might have said something during some of those drunk ravings in the winter.

“And so you think it’s their place to pick winners for him?” Elliot asked, saving him a reply.

“Um, yes?” Petey said.

“What’d you mean, yes?” Elliot returned. “You think it’s okay that they run his life like a subsidiary?”

“Okay, let’s not go there,” Petey said flatly.

“It could have caused a problem for him, you know. He’s lucky Sean didn’t take badly to it.”

“Why would he? It was an extremely flattering piece.”

“Do you really think anybody wants to be…” Elliot seemed to not have the word.

“Controlled,” he quietly supplied.

“Controlled like that?”

“Oh, whatever, it’s good for Sean to know he’s not marrying just anyone off the streets.”

“Jesus Christ, Petey,” he said, almost at a loss for words. “That is beyond the pale.”

“No, I’m sorry. Let’s not pretend like we weren’t deeply offended and extremely hurt when he ran off and left Holden.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you were getting emotional because you thought you’d never see him again.”

Petey turned a sharp look on Elliot, who had spoken. “Can I finish? And you, Elliot, at the time were saying that Holden ought to keep that piece of news from Alastair at all costs. Why would you say that if you didn’t believe that Alastair had some kind of rights in the situation?”

“Rights?” he said, aghast. “Like I’m being sold off?”

And then a thought started forming, that this might have been the conversation his dad had with Sean after their return from Johnston. The conversation that had unsettled Sean a little. Because it was actually the blunter version of the conversation he’d also had at his lunch with his industry colleagues on Tuesday.

But why would Sean have a conversation like that with his dad and tolerate it?

He looked to Elliot for some kind of support, but Elliot was avoiding his gaze.

And then he remembered that Elliot had in fact said the same thing to him that evening in his condo, when he had insisted that he go to Iowa and get Sean back to LA. He’d been too worried to pay it any mind, but Elliot must have felt it was true to repeat it.

Petey had turned to him. “Holden, you know how much I hate being the voice of reason, but it does appear to be my lot throughout this difficult time for you.” Petey put down his drink and sat forward, eyes on him like a school teacher talking to a particularly troublesome child. 

“Holden, your parents have protected you very well, always. Their interventions have allowed you to live a charmed lifestyle in all these men they shield you from, who, gay or straight, would devour you whole if they could. I mean, we’ve met them all,” he said, sweeping his hand in a way that suggested he had witnessed Vincent’s little scene. “And the sole reason they dare not cross any lines is because the fallout, from directions they wouldn’t even see coming, would be painful. So, please, boys, friends. I’ve said this before, and I say it again. Let’s not vilify Alastair or Cece. I think it’s _wrong_ of you to continually judge them so harshly, Holden, and wrong of you to not trust them at this important point in your life. Especially your father whom we all know would gold-plate the ground you walk on if he could.”

Petey continuing looking sternly at him, or trying to, his nearly liquid black eyes diminishing the effect to a more sensual one. But point made, Petey picked up his whiskey and took a dainty gulp.

Elliot pulled his lips into a tight line and continued to look away. Lately, it seemed he was having Petey say the things he didn’t quite want to.

“All right, look,” Petey said, setting down his drink and moving along. “The actual reason I’m here is to discuss my boss’s engagement party with his highness. We need a venue.”

“What’re the options,” Elliot quickly asked, apparently only too happy to move off the complicated subject of his parents for now.

He could have just found a nice hole to burrow into. Petey’s extended diatribe might have just topped the list of things he hadn’t needed.

“Well,” Petey said, “there’s David’s boat—”

“No boats,” he quickly said.

“Or,” Petey continued, giving him a sympathetic smile. “David has a lovely three-floor penthouse in London that always makes for a great party venue. And we could hit up that male-only brothel in Amsterdam afterward…”

“I’m sorry, what?” he said. “It wasn’t a brothel.” 

He looked at Elliot, whose eyebrow had lifted, and turned back to Petey “Why did you just say that?”

Petey had a deep crease in his brow, thinking about it. “It wasn’t?” he finally asked.

Elliot had started playing with the stirrer in his drink.

“I- I mean, it didn’t have to be,” he said. “That’s not what they call their services. And there were normal parts—”

“Petey,” Elliot said, shaking his head. “You’re the purveyor of bad ideas. That’s why it’s so disturbing when you say things that make sense.”

“What’re you talking about, it’s a great idea! That place was heaven.”

“Maybe for a bachelor party. But an engagement party? With family and friends?”

“I don’t mean for _them_ to go. I just want a venue that good things can come out of, and Amsterdam is only seventy five minutes away. Could you just see Sean in a male brothel? I would actually, literally, die. And who says we have to do anything traditional anyway? My boss isn’t about to get bored off his ass.”

“If we do that,” Elliot said. “Then what are we gonna do for the bachelor party?”

“Not go to a brothel,” he said emphatically, looking from one friend to the other. 

Elliot was still not quite looking at him, while Petey pursed his lips and took more sips of his whiskey.

“No brothels, no strip clubs, no— we’re not doing anything involving other guys, professional or otherwise. That’s the _last_ thing I need.”

“Why? Is Sean the jealous type or something?” Petey asked innocently. 

Elliot, staring into his glass and making a great effort at controlling a smile, was clearly starting to enjoy this.

“We’re not having a bunch of boring events for Holden’s wedding,” Petey muttered. “You’re the first among us, Holden, not to mention the unlikeliest among us, to be doing this, and we’re going to make it one hell of a memory. Remember how happy we were when you called from Iowa to say everything was fine?”

“Speaking of making calls,” Elliot said, turning a hard gaze on Petey. “Has Bryan been talking to TMZ?”

“I told you to stop listening to Craig’s bullshit!”

He sighed and sat back.

*

Whatever Alastair’s actual motive for inviting him to dinner with his pals, it had nothing to do with golf. In that regard he’d been wrong telling Holden that he was sure of what the dinner was about.

For almost all of the first hour, he felt incredibly tense. They weren’t discussing the tournament. No one had so much as mentioned it. Past discussing the tournament, why would be they all be there?

What they were discussing was business. The men in the private dining room—the restaurant was all private rooms—Hanan, Nevins, who really was very intelligent, Robert Berkeley, another of Alastair’s friend he’d met last summer, and a philanthropist named John Bowman whom he’d never met, were having a calm and candid conversation on a tailor set of topics. Namely, their business holdings, investments, planned acquisitions, short and long term financial arrangements. That sort of thing.

He spent the entire first hour trying to figure out exactly what _he_ was supposed to be doing there. Listening to them talking, reading between the lines. Concerned that Alastair had orchestrated the outing as a kind of feint to know what he might have planned for the weekend. 

At a point their conversation did a subtle turn, stopped being about wider areas of subject matter and seemed to narrow specifically to just matters concerning the Wilson family. It was then that things started clarifying for him. It appeared that Alastair had brought him to this time and place to finely but very pointedly bring him in on a deeper level on the subject of his family.

There was no hidden agenda, no strategy. At least not one that concerned Holden directly, or the weekend.

Alastair seemed to have brought him to dinner with his friends for the simple reason that these men, from what he could glean, were of specific importance in some way to Holden and to Alastair’s family. Hanan he knew the connection, but Nevins and the other two he could only guess at. He got the distinct feeling they were not meant to be asked, and he planned to just ask Holden later.

And then there was something else he was picking up on. To do with his relationship to Holden after all. Last summer when Alastair had been taking him on the rounds, Alastair had flippantly introduced him to everyone, including half the men here, as “Sean Jackson, who needs no introduction.” 

Tonight, however, it had been, “Please reacquaint yourselves with my son-in-law, Sean.”

And it had startled him, no doubt. But it wasn’t until half way through the dinner that it all started falling into place.

Alastair then took pains to display him from that different angle than the one-dimensional one of “professional _football_ player?” that he and his ilk had so enjoyed repeating last summer.

He pushed aside his surprise. He supposed Alastair could have simply told him what he had in mind for tonight. But seeing the mostly shaky interactions they had had up until two weeks ago, he guessed Alastair felt actions spoke louder than words. 

He had worked so hard to reach here and had expected it to take so much longer, and probably feel more frustrating, that he hadn’t been aware it was happening. 

But every moment of the dinner was assuring him that he wasn’t imagining things. From all indications, not to mention the company they were in, Alastair still had his take on how the world worked, rules that didn’t apply to him and his own. 

But that too-casual air about his relationship to Holden was totally and completely gone. The dinner seemed to be Alastair’s way of proving that where the two of them were concerned, they had irrevocably crossed a line together.

And it felt damn good.

It also made up for every tiring minute of defensiveness and insecurity he had labored under throughout last July, wondering how he was meant to exist in a family like theirs. And it was perfect timing, which he was sure Alastair knew, for his confidence level going into the weekend.

Once it all sank in, he took a deep, quiet breath and ate his meal in relish, and was able to spend the remaining half hour or so enjoying himself.

When the men mentioned the Forbes article, all without exception seeing it from the purely strategic viewpoint Cecelia had intended, Alastair spoke of his engagement to his son almost reverently. Whatever Holden wanted to hold against Alastair, the man really had changed.

Hanan’s reaction to the change in tone, considering that the drama had occurred on his boat, and he’d been aware of the dynamics going in, wasn’t evident. His constant poker-face didn’t change. Earlier, he had simply placed his big hairy hand on his shoulder and had solemnly welcomed him.

The evening also underlined the fact that last summer’s patience-straining Bay Club dinners, comprised of preening young men trying to win Alastair’s approval, really had been some kind of threshold test. The extent to which Alastair exposed himself or his family to the men who paraded through Holden’s life. Not a single one before him, evidently, had survived those stages. So more blatant now was how foolish and desperate it had been for Cecelia to try and get Holden to reunite with someone like Darren Moran. With Moran swallowing everything Alastair dished whole, Alastair would have made short work of him over the hard stuff.

Toward the end of the night, they did talk some golf. The men asked him to forward the team’s financial targets and the charities to receive the proceeds.

“Yeah, no problem,” he said, having brought along the information they were asking, for his pitch that hadn’t happened, and now knowing that Alastair having check-marked him, there wasn’t going to be a pitch.

He did clear his throat a little when he turned to Alastair. 

“Al, I was hoping we could get use of the Country Club course. I know it’s probably booked solid for the summer—”

“Oh, don’t be boring,” Larry Nevins said. “It’s a charity tournament. We’ll book it somewhere exclusive, charge the attendees a lot of money just to show up, and raise more money than anyone in the NFL’s ever managed.”

“Done,” Alastair said, clasping his hands. “Let’s make it a fun summer.”

He nodded, taken aback, but starting to understand their winner takes all mentality. Something new to him off the field.

Before they wrapped up, they started asking him about his plans after retiring from football. 

He happily told them.

—

At dinner’s conclusion—these men didn’t seem to have very long ones; it had been barely an hour and a half—Alastair asked him to walk him to his car. 

This was after Hanan had placed a hand on his shoulder and simply mumbled at him, before heading to his car.

Despite the positive night, Alastair looked drawn, and seemed, to him at least, to have conducted the evening with a grave demeanor that was foreign to his usual gregariousness. He seemed sapped of energy.

They strolled to his flashy newest coupe, an Astin Martin Holden had told him, to replace the Bentley from last summer. It was parked in the small parking lot of the garden restaurant, a place he hadn’t even known existed. It was secluded by a flowered stone wall, had no valet, and seemed connected to a signless boutique hotel of some kind. He actually really liked the place, though he suspected Holden would tell him he was turning into an old man.

At his car, Alastair patted his shoulder, asked him how he’d enjoyed the evening. He told him he’d enjoyed it quite a lot.

“Excellent, Sean. You’re a good man. See you in Bel Air. I’ve got some fun stuff to show you about my boy.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

Then, reaching for the door handle, while he himself very interestedly stepped back, Alastair turned back to him with his finger raised in the way Holden had when he had forgotten the most important point.

“And Sean,” he said, perfectly seriously. “Make sure you bring him.”

Then Alastair popped the handle and climbed in.

He thought that rather sweet.

*

Petey had met a famous actress he knew personally, and who had just won an Oscar, so he stayed behind to continue networking while Elliot and him went roof top. “To find a quiet place to talk,” Elliot had practically warned.

None needed.

They’d forgone barstools and were standing together at the shoulder-high glass encasing the rooftop bar, mineral waters in hand. Having won their bids via a winning strategy of bribing their waiter to keep them informed, they were feeling pretty good about themselves. The night was clear and a cool breeze was blowing through the space. Near them was a glowing ocean-blue grand piano, at which a guy in glasses was playing, who whenever their eyes met smiled at him in a way he could only describe as lovingly. He was careful not to look too often in that direction.

Sipping their still waters, they enjoyed the relative calm as compared to downstairs.

The breeze touched his skin again, reminding him that though it was summer in LA, it was March everywhere else. Especially in Iowa. He smiled to himself, wondering whether the heatwave had passed and his dear Anne was faring better.

Looking at the city’s lights in this hazeless weather also reminded him of Bradford Hill. Of being with Sean on it, and his thoughts that night. How all he had wanted was for Sean to be his normal, tranquil self. To take him around and show him off to his friends and townspeople and allow them to enjoy the simple, wonderful things he had just discovered could exist in life. Not to think about LA and all the things he had done wrong. 

And he had gotten his wish. Problem was, he had also apparently left a chunk of his happiness there.

He drew a breath and looked out at it, the beautiful cityscape. Whatever he was going through, it felt wonderful being up here, feeling like he could think. Sean was always saying that the city views looked all right when it was night and you could pretend it was just you and some hottie—meaning him, which had made him smile—alone in the world. 

He was smiling now. God help him survive Sean Jackson and his romances.

About to wonder just how Sean was faring with his own parent, his head simply shut him down.

The fact was that after this week, after everything he had seen and heard, _dread_ just wasn’t a feeling he was having anymore over Sean’s outings with his dad. 

And there, he supposed, was the answer to the question he had asked himself earlier in his car. Maybe he’d needed Grosvenor’s exec popping him a thumbs up reminder for him to let their discussion at lunch come sit so comfortably at the forefront. Or maybe Petey just laying it out had stunned him into accepting it.

Either way…he was accepting it. Reluctantly, but he was. 

That concerns like that were a thing of the past. That things might actually be okay between Sean and his dad.

The realization left him with a strange feeling. As if he had just opened a door to a room and found a vast, open…space.

One he didn’t know what to do with.

Slowly returning to his surroundings, it was to see that he was looking directly at the pianist. So he just went with it and nodded in acknowledgment of the fact. Fingers caressing the keys, the pianist puckered his lips and blew him a soft kiss.

Well, he thought, bringing his gaze back to his bottle. He’d walked right into that one.

He glanced at Elliot and noticed that he wasn’t the only one being scoped for possibilities. There were a number of guys checking Elliot out, who tonight looked especially dashing in a Gieves suit and grey striped shirt.

“You look very nice this evening,” he told Elliot.

Elliot almost, then didn’t bother sliding him a look. Elliot was looking down the side of the glass at the hotel’s entrance. He just shook his head. “You’re such a man charmer.”

“You’re not gonna look?” he asked, waiting for Elliot to look at him so he could make the appropriate eye connections.

“No.”

“Just look,” he enticed. “At me. Come on.”

Elliot fought a smile, refused to look. “If you want to give them something to look at, Holden, take your jacket off and start gyrating those hips.”

He smiled. It’d been a while since he’d done one of those. 

“Maybe later,” he said.

Then he lowered his gaze to the bottle in his hand and was quiet.

“So this weekend, huh.”

“Yup.”

“And how’re you feeling? You do look a bit better than yesterday.”

“Well, I do feel a little better because I had a break, I went to London overnight and, well, you know. Work is always an escape.”

“Indeed.”

“There’re at dinner right now. Sean and my dad.”

Elliot, who had been preoccupiedly staring down at the shining lights and red carpet at the hotel’s entrance, now straightened. He settled against the glass and looked at him. “So they genuinely get along?”

He licked his dry lips. Scrabble rules, double word scores. That was his lot this week. He nodded.

“That’s great, Holden.”

“It is actually.” 

And he then couldn’t say anything more, as his throat had pretty much closed up.

Elliot watched him some more, then turned his head and nodded down at where he had been looking.

“You know what I was thinking, looking down there?”

“I’m afraid to ask, to be honest. You had an evil smile on your face.”

“Is that what it looked like from there? I was thinking that this was one of your many sites of drunken misery in the winter.”

 _Ugh._ “Don’t bring that up.” Thinking of it still felt like having hunger pangs.

“You spilled your guts, H. I’d never seen you like that. I would never have even believed you could get like that.”

“That makes two of us,” he muttered.

Elliot had locked interested eyes on him. “So how come you never talk like that when you’re sober?”

“Like a raving lunatic? I may have been drunk, but I could hear myself.”

“So then, you know you were talking about your feelings for him. In a way you never express when you’re not plastered. Not before and not since.”

“I talked to you about having sex with him.”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m saying. You asked for advice on how to have more intimate sex. You didn’t talk about what’s going on inside that locked door heart of yours. Not even afterward when we spent most of last Christmas and New Year’s together. But put some alcohol in you and you’ll bleed all over my shoes.”

“What’d you want me to say, Elliot? That I have the hots for him and it won’t go away?”

Elliot tilted his head and contemplated him.

“That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? Not nearly as eloquently as your winter ravings, but that succinctly states your problem.”

“How is that a problem?”

“It is because I think it’s the reason you’re afraid to bring him to places like this. Places that contain your real life.

“I told you I’m not afraid. We spent all of last summer going from one cocktail party to the next.”

Elliot smiled knowingly. “In Bel Air and Holmby Hills homes? That’s not the same thing.”

He rubbed at his bottle’s label. They were making them nowadays so that they didn’t satisfactorily come off. He missed the days when it was sticky paper.

He sighed and took his gaze off it, glancing at Elliot. 

“We go out all the time. Or we used to, before things got so heated in the media.”

“But never where anyone you know can see. Dr. Slut is right, you know. People like him would have less to say if they could see you two together.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I care what Vincent has to say.”

“That’s not the point and you know it. Sean affects you in a way that is…not the Holden any of us knows. You _know_ it’s a problem when you wouldn’t even let me and Petey see it in action in your flat.”

He hadn’t come to talk about this. Why was Elliot doing this. He scowled at him. “Is this part of your punishment for me?”

Elliot’s didn’t take his eyes off him, as if he was looking directly at his heart. “You shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid of what you have with him, Holden. All that dirty sex you were having with him last year made you the happiest I have ever seen you. I mean, who even knew that simply acting out sexual fantasies could have such an effect?”

“Could you lower your voice, please?” he whispered, sure he was feeling the pianist’s eyes hot on the back of his head.

“You were attending fundraisers grinning like a goofball,” Elliot said, knowing his voice was perfectly down. “Do you remember that? Smiling at everyone in sight like you had been drugged?”

He clamped down his lips but felt himself smiling despite it. He looked at his bottle and nodded.

“Well, now that I think about it, it’s no wonder you crashed so hard after you two were cut off.”

He rubbed at his bottle. Then took a sip.

“You’re marrying the guy,” Elliot said gently. “So you need to quit hiding him.”

He became quiet, the conversation having moved too fast.

But it had coalesced. 

If he was going to talk about what happened on the boat, then he needed to talk about everything that got him— them— there.

No he wasn’t about to stroll Sean into these events and have someone like Vincent walk up to him. He’d be crazy to. Just as he’d be crazy to believe that one night of expressing his anger had cured Sean of it. Sometimes he felt it, still in the way Sean’s arms tightened around him when Sean brought up certain things inside his condo. Sean wasn’t clamoring to come out anyway. 

But everything Sean carried around about his past, ultimately—maybe—he could deal with it. He just wasn’t ready. He just…didn’t yet know how.

“Elliot, you know more than most that nothing about the way I was raised allows for me to have this relationship,” he said quietly. “None of what he makes me feel fits into our world.”

 _But he’s addressed that,_ the quiet voice piped in and pointed out. _Your dad has addressed that._

He shook his head, no longer sure what to trust. “I feel like I’m standing between two worlds I don’t know how to combine. It’s not about being unappreciative of the things I have,” he said, picking up the thread Petey had dropped in his lap. “Or of the…parents I have. I do know what I have. But I guess were it up to Nicola and the Hansons and everyone else, I would just go with a known quantity from our own side and be done with it.”

“Like fucking Darren?”

“Yes. I mean, that was never going to happen, but it makes sense objectively. My life would be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to explain anything, and I sure wouldn’t feel the pressure and the stress I’m feeling right now. Someone like Darren would just know what to do. Where he fit in. And my parents would be perfectly satisfied.”

“Cecelia maybe. But Alastair, I’m not so sure. Frankly, I’m not sure Alastair thinks any guy is good enough for you.”

He threw Elliot an irritated look. “Because I’m his precious little princess?”

Elliot smiled, triumphantly. “His special little _prince._ ”

He gave Elliot the meanest, hardest look he could form.

Elliot ignored him.

“Whatever anyone wants from your relationships is their business, Holden. I know I certainly don’t need to tell you that. How many of their rich, bored, Bel Air sons are dumping the lifestyle and getting married. But now everyone wants to tell you how it’s done.”

“Sometimes…I just…wish it could be easier.”

“Keeping Sean under wraps won’t make it easier. If anything, it’ll only make things harder when the time comes. Holden, most heirs in your position are empty suits, while the other half are trying way too hard to prove they’re different or better than their parents. You’re one of the outliers. You’re just you. You do things exactly as you want to. Not as the book says. And I think your parents know that. And if the rest of them can’t deal, then they need to back off.”

“I don’t think my parents are dealing.”

“Your dad is.”

He stopped talking.

And Elliot knew he had reached the sore spot.

Elliot took several sips of his water, looked at the view for a little while. Then he turned to him and said, “What did you and your dad fight about, Holden?”

He lowered his gaze to the ground and spoke in a small voice. “This.”

“You said he apologized for acting…overbearing of late?”

“It was a little more than that.”

Elliot watched him, waited.

“You remember what happened with Ian, right?”

For long moments, there was complete silence. 

Then Elliot very quietly said, “Of course. You don’t have to ask me that.”

“May dad apologized for it.”

An even longer silence descended, the words apparently needing time to sink in. 

“What?” Elliot finally asked.

“Yeah.”

“Holden, I- I wouldn’t have even thought he remembered.”

“Same here. But he did. Does.”

And then he didn’t say anything more.

But the part of him that had been waiting to talk about this shouted with joy and threw its arms around him, hugging and kissing him and making warm cuddly noises that he, annoyingly, knew where it had gotten it from.

“Elliot, I was so angry at him…”

“Wait. Start from the beginning.”

He nodded. He was going to spill it all. Everything he hadn’t been able to voice to Sean because Sean understood only what he had be exposed to, only what he could try to convey with words. Unlike Elliot had lived half his life with it.

“That argument I told you about, it was actually from before. From last summer, when he— insisted on acting like _such_ an asshole. So this time around I wasn’t about to go in there unprepared or put up with any nonsense. We- we’d just come back from seeing Sean’s family and I was— _raw_ and I lost it. I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry with him. I…said some pretty…bad things.”

Rubbing away at his bottle’s label, he shamefully recalled how callous he had been, pressing on comparing his dad with Wil, when he knew that wasn’t fair at all. Thank God Sean hadn’t been there. Because besides probably upsetting him, he was sure that Sean would have straightened him out later, in ways his heart wouldn’t have enjoyed.

“I finished what I had to say. And…he started talking.”

Elliot had all the while been perfectly still, perfectly silent. 

The sounds of a surprisingly soft Rachmaninov and the murmur of guests filtered over.

Elliot moved his hand a little closer on the ledge. “Just get it out,” he said gently.

He nodded, clearing his throat. “When he started talking I thought I was dreaming. I really did. It was so…unreal, and real at the same time. H-he…told me he was sorry he kept hurting me. That he had come prepared to tell me some things based on encouragement Sean had given him, but that once again he had screwed up.” And, as he spoke, the memories he hadn’t wanted to recall started up with a vengeance, the ones of his father holding him and kissing his temple and sounding so regretful it had made him cry. So devoid of the undertones he had come to take for granted. Instantly filling his head with possibilities of what their relationship might have been and should have been. 

Forcing the words from out of him, he went on. 

“What he said he wanted and needed to tell me was that he knew he had fucked up. Those were his words. That he had fucked up.” He wasn’t surprised to see his hand shaking, still hardly believing the words had been real. “That he should have steered me better over the years. So that he, and all he represented weren’t part of the reason I went through…such a struggle over Sean. I- I hadn’t even known he knew anything about that. But he said he had been fully aware. Just as he had always been aware that he and my mother hadn’t exactly been the best of guides for my personal happiness. Seeing the mess they’d left in the wake of their divorce and all the emotional things they’d left for me to deal with… even though—” he bit his lip, and released it. “Even though they knew I wasn’t like them when it came to, you know, things like this. Just…as…you just pointed out, Elliot. And that for him, the most difficult part had been seeing me like this, pulled around by so much vulnerability and against everything he had instilled in me, and that because of it he had reacted badly from the start. That seemed to make him very sad,” he said softly, his eyes on his bottle. “I was able to see that.”

He looked at Elliot. 

Elliot was staring at him as if he were an alien that had just dropped from the clear blue sky.

“Sean beat up Darren last year,” he said. “They both ended up at Cedars.”

“Wh-wha—?”

“There’s more. And I-I don’t want to lose my nerve. At the hospital that night I asked my dad why I was allowed to succeed at business and not much else. Definitely not anything resembling a long term relationship. And on Ben’s boat he gave me an answer. That not only had I been successful in business and had made him very proud, I had also been more successful than he ever had been in his personal life, because I had found, and had worked successfully to keep, a partner who could love and respect me for who I was. Not for anything superficial or narrow minded or short sighted. And that me having accomplished this made him proudest of all.”

He took a heavy breath, almost through, and proud of himself for it. He would get through, once, and hopefully never again.

“That was when he apologized about Ian. He said he wished he had respected my feelings for him. And that his response had been kinder. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what an ambush that was. I was a mess. And I think about Ian maybe once a decade, right? And only when my dad has crossed a particular line. But…he understood it perfectly. What he had done wrong. And then he asked for my forgiveness. Because, he said, while he and my mother had protected me in every other way, they had failed to provide me with the— kind of love that would have prepared me for this. For Sean. For marriage. And for that he was deeply sorry.”

At last he stopped. And looked again at Elliot.

Elliot now had a look as if, having descended from the sky, the alien had somehow morphed into the best friend he went to college and business school with.

For a good minute, Elliot was speechless.

“What _fuck,_ Holden,” Elliot then said, straightening from the glass. He leaned forward. “ _Your dad_ said all that?”

He nodded.

“Then why the fuck— What is happening right now? Why are you having a problem?”

“Because I don’t know if I believe him,” he said simply.

“Your _dad_ said all of that and you don’t know if you believe him? That stuff came out of Alastair Wilson and you think…what? What’d you think, Holden?”

He closed his eyes and asked himself the question again. For the millionth time. And all he could come up with was the answer he had given Sean that night.

“That my parents are very calculating people. There was no better time for him to say those things to me. And I was aware of that the whole time. I was angry and missing Sean’s family and…he knew something was different.”

“But _this_ is different,” Elliot cried softly, still looking stunned. “Holden, your dad isn’t faking any of this. I _saw_ him at the reception and he looked like someone who knew they had fucked up.”

“You don’t know the things he’s said to me over the years, Elliot. The things he’s said about Sean. I-I heard everything he had to say but thought of trusting him…makes me feel sick.”

“But who better to trust? You’re worried about combining your two very different worlds. One where you’re this guy who helps perfect strangers and who’s wildly and embarrassingly in love with this football jock you keep Sports Illustrated copies to jerk off to, and on the other where you’re this rich philanthropist’s son who ultimately has to keep up an image. If you’re having a collision of worlds, your dad just told you he knows and is ready to help you with that. Who better to help you with that do it than your dad? You don’t even have to be worried about bringing Sean out. If you’ve got your dad on your side, no one, not even your _mother_ would dare cross that line. Darren would pack his arrogant ass out of the fucking _state._ ”

“So one night in which he gets it right and I’m supposed to hand everything over to him. That makes sense?”

“Yes, yes it does.”

“Why can’t I just—”

“Holden—”

“No, listen. Why aren’t I allowed to just say, okay, great. I heard you. Good for you. I’ll get back to you in a few years? I’m not a kid. Why can’t I just say that?”

“Because,” Elliot said gently, staring at him. “Even just talking about it, you’re flushed like the little kid you don’t want to be with him. You look like a little boy excited to see his dad come home.”

He stared unblinkingly at Elliot. 

“You’re saying that I’m giving the impression that I want this?”

“Yes.”

“That’s called blaming the victim, Elliot.”

Elliot’s brown eyes had softened completely, and now looked a little sad. 

“It’s all coming from you, Holden. Like it or not. And you can fault him all you want, but your dad is seeing it and reaching out to you. And from everything you’ve just told me— and you didn’t forget _one_ word of it— I’d say he’s made an incredible start.”

He stood there unmoving, limply holding his bottle of mineral water in his hand. 

Elliot reached over and took the bottle from him, placing both their bottles on the ledge.

Then Eliot turned back to him and pulled him forward, wrapping him in a soft, warm hug.

Surprised, he simply stood there with his arms hanging at his sides.

“Hug me back, damn you,” Elliot said fiercely, his voice a thick cloud at his back.

He wordlessly put his arms around him and buried his face in his neck, not knowing how to feel.

A quiet volley of catcalls and applause suddenly floated over to them.

Elliot pulled back and didn’t meet his eyes, concentrating on picking up his water, which he did to find it empty. As was his. 

He moved both bottles aside and asked Elliot if he wanted another one. Elliot nodded, thanking him in a voice that was still thick. Then Elliot turned to the side and began pretending to look for his phone in his jacket. And not knowing what else to do, he just stared at him.

Elliot swallowed, and shook his head. And said, “Fuck, Holden.”

—

They left Sofitel, Elliot behind him in his Jaguar, flashing his headlights as they parted at Doheny.

Elliot turned north into West Hollywood and he continued west towards Santa Monica Boulevard and his condo.

That was the plan anyway. When he reached Wilshire, he felt as though Elliot was still behind him, trailing him and pushing him to keep going. 

So he kept on past his turn and went on until the moon was a cool silver night light over the Pacific.


	6. Chapter 6

Sean’s neighborhood was peaceful.

It had been hours since dinner with his father, and it must have ended since.

In Sean’s cul-de-sac, the black SUV with the bodyguards he still couldn’t make himself get rid of was quietly parked. The bodyguard in the front passenger seat nodded to him as he went past, having parked his car behind theirs. They were missing one guy. And, being night time, it meant Sean was in the water.

As he crossed to Sean’s door, instinct made him look back, and sure enough, TMZ’s Audi Quattro was now parked at the entrance of the street. They hadn’t been following him, so they must have been hanging around looking out for who came to Sean’s place at night. Sean had told him once after he had come out of them or some other tabloid sending a reporter to pretend to be some randomly lost good looking guy hoping to score with Sean Jackson, or something. 

Not a bad idea for a role play fantasy maybe later.

Inside the house, all was equally peaceful. Macy Gray was singing about her sweet, sweet baby, and wasn’t life crazy. Relaxation candles and flowers dotted the space. The sliding doors to the back patio were open and a breeze was ruffling Sean’s papers, anchored by a LAMBDA paperweight.

He went to the doors and propped his elbow on the wall, staring out past the lit up swimming pool below that Sean never, ever used, out toward the dark ocean. He felt a big smile when the first sign of life out there was a seal flopping around on the water’s edge. 

And then beyond that, rising from the water in scandalously small swim shorts, which heaven help him were nearly identical to the ones in his dream, slicking water from his hair like some overheated model in a Calvin Klein ad, was Sean Jackson.

He had to remember to deliver that apology to his subconscious. Because feeling like his dream was finally bringing itself to one of pure eroticism, he watched as Sean strode from the water and sat exhaustedly on the sand, several feet from the excitedly barking seal. Barking like it recognized the quarterback from San Diego. Sean looked at it, and even from his distance he could see him snort with bemusement. 

Sean then sat there looking at the expanse of ocean, seemingly catching his breath. Then he stood up and reached behind him to slide a finger beneath his shorts, streamlining the seam of his underwear. He then paced back to the shoreline and with the next step plunged headfirst back into the water.

He stood there licking his lip, thinking that he would have paid half his financial worth to see that underwear action repeated without the interfering shorts. Releasing a breath, he settled his head on his forearm. Then for the first time in a number of days, he pulled his phone from his jacket and opened his messages to his father’s texts. He read the last one. The most important one.

_I don’t want to have gotten to this stage in life and know that I’ve failed you. No father wants this._

It was funny. Now that it was all out, everything in his heart, he no longer feared looking at the texts.

He was different from who he had been even this time last year. He had changed, as Elliot who knew him best had said. And truthfully, he didn’t need Nicola Moran or Vincent or anyone else to highlight it.

So why couldn’t his dad as well?

He know how he felt looking at Arthur's file. He ought to be able to at least face the fact that he loved his father very much, and that he didn’t know what to do. And that even if he did, he didn't know how to get there.

Love was supposed to make you strong. Like he felt with Sean, always now.

So why didn’t it translate here and save him so much pain?

Why didn’t he feel emotionally safe with his father?

The sound of feet shifting sand reached his ears, and he looked up to see Sean slowly striding up the beach towards the house. 

Pocketing his phone, he stepped back and slowly opened the sliding door.

“Greetings, merman of the ocean.”

Sean then saw him, and he actually saw his heartbeat kick up, his water-spiked lashes flickering and his mouth parting slightly. And his eyes, looking grey in the moonlight, just lit up. It was was very, very flattering.

“Greetings, land dweller,” Sean softly replied, coming up to him and wrapping his wet arms around his shoulders, soaking the entire front of his suit. Standing front to front, their breaths mingled warmly and for several seconds he couldn't speak.

“I can feel your heart beating,” Sean said, delicately, his ocean-cooled lips, his warmer tongue, brushing the side of nose. He delicately kissed him there. “Is that for me?”

If he could only put in words what he did to him, how he made him want and hope and believe in stupid, wrong-headed things. 

He told him yes, it was for him. 

Then he took him by the waist and pulled him closer. 

“I like your swim trunks,” he whispered.

Sean pulled back and stared at his face. “Yeah?” He nodded. 

“I hoped you would,” Sean replied, his lips back on his, his fingers stretching into the hair at the back of his head. “Sweetheart, so about this weekend. You think you—”

“No,” he said softly. “I don’t.”

Sean kissed him, stroking his warming lips on him. “Fine,” he whispered. “Come with me. Let’s go find out what you like so much about a pair of swim wear.”

*

Many hours later, Sean’s house was quiet. Sean was fast asleep in the bedroom, only the vast, rhythmic sound of crashing waves to be heard in the entire world.

He was sitting on a stool in Sean’s kitchen, watching the surf. He remembered this had been the very stool he’d sat on the evening Sean proposed to him, and he had returned from storming out. He’d sat here like this, not calm, and yet still. Giving room to the emotions raging through him to go ahead, and just focusing on the one that ran through all of them like a constant, brightly colored thread. The knowledge that he had run from Sean for years, and that there had been no more running.

Now he did himself the same favor. Sat there and let the thoughts that were chasing him catch up with him. He had relayed the words to Elliot. Now he allowed himself to consider their implications.

At the age of twenty-two, there had been a guy named Ian. Ian had been his first love. 

Experience had since taught him that there were first loves and there were true loves, and many other kinds of love in between. Love, he had long known, was everywhere, floating around for the taking, no matter the order or flavor it came in—whether first, middle, lukewarm or burning hot. And maybe he had taken more than his fair share of those kind of love. True love was the one that made a hole inside you that could never be filled. Stripped you bare and left you naked as the day you were born, not just made you horny and forgive silly things. There was no mistaking that one for anything else. That was the one he had with Sean.

Ian, anyway, had been the first. Boyfriend Zero, as Elliot called him. The guy who had awakened something inside him, had made him so constantly giddy and insanely horny that he had intrinsically understood what Allison’s had meant when she talked about the girl who at age sixteen had made her grasp her sexuality. He had never had any doubts or confusion about his own sexuality, much as he had never had any doubts or confusion about anything growing up. Although he had experimented like everyone else in college. Nonetheless, Ian had been that guy for him. 

Brown-haired, his height, and about as hot as male college athletes got. And with the confidence to boot. That had been senior year in college. USC football, naturally. When he looked back on it now, he wished he had opened up to Elliot, who could have probably told him it wasn’t that big a deal. Not even close to being that big a deal. But back then it had just been him and his dad.

Like he told Elliot, he knew the things he should be grateful for. His father had never once made him self-conscious about not being heterosexual, or not even “trying” to be bisexual, like some of the kids in college had said their parents wished on them. During high school, his father had one day simply found him in his room with a boy and had asked who the boy was, to which he had replied, “He’s my boyfriend,” and that had been all there was to it. As an adult, of course, he understood that by his high school years his parents were well aware that he was gay. 

His mother, he didn’t think, gave a damn what a person’s sexual orientation was just as long as their financial background matched hers. But maybe because his father had always been slightly more accessible, maybe because they were simply both male; or maybe he needed to accept that he saw more of himself in his father, at least where sexual nature was concerned. But whatever the reason, it had always been his father who had talked to him about sexuality.

So it was his father who had noticed his terror and confusion when Ian, whom he had been sleeping with all of senior year, had emotionally walked him into a closed, brick, door.

Upon having him meet him for dinner before he left for business school, his father had simply asked, “Who is he and what did he do to you?” And he had told him. Several days later there had been a file bearing Ian’s name on his father’s desk, though that part he didn’t discover until the following summer when he was home for the summer. 

He still vividly remembered looking at the file, with no experiential or emotional reference as to whether he was seeing something good or bad.

But at their dinner his father had told him several things. “Son,” he had said. “Don’t be _weak._ Don’t be a fool, and never let any man or woman make one of you. We’re men and we’re not built for much emotion or monogamy. And let’s face it, you least of all.” 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been shocked. Or maybe covered it up better. But he’d been unable to do so, and seeing his shock, his father had softened his words, jocularly adding, “We’re two of a kind, really, you and I. So that’s not such a bad thing.” And then had come the cheerful prediction that not only would he be unable to maintain a stable relationship, chances were he would come to savor the fact.

He took a breath and lowered his eyes to the kitchen’s stone floor.

If a person’s life was indeed a story and the question, “When did you come to know yourself?” could seriously be posed, he could unhesitantly point to that moment and say that was it.

Still, he didn’t care to believe that he had somehow assimilated his father’s words and that years later he could hold an unfortunate moment as being the reason he had never wanted to take his sexual partners seriously. That would be nonsense. He knew himself better than that. 

Yet it was exactly why, when it came time to take Sean seriously, he had known that his parents were not the ones from whom to seek blessings.

He had mentioned Ian to Sean, though not by name, in very sketched terms last July. No more wanting to talk about it then than with Sean holding him in his lap a few nights ago, aware that something was very much the matter. And definitely not with Sean’s frustrations about the offseason washing up against him like gentle wave after wave. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in his relationship, but there had been too many land mines already and he didn’t wish to keep putting them through the strain of diffusing them.

Yes, the “weekend” was only a meeting and yes it would only be for a few hours. But when he thought that a moment, a scenario, could prove so pivotal as to make a lasting change, he could in fact point to a couple. He could very easily draw a straight line from the last time he and Sean had had dinner with his father in Bel Air in January, that awful, gut-wrenching moment when he had gotten an unvarnished glimpse into Sean’s anger at his past, back to the one he had had at twenty-two before leaving for business school. And if both hadn’t in fact had a permanent effect, each had certainly changed things.

Tonight, Sean had had a perfectly fine dinner with his dad, according to him and according to his body language. And Ian was the distant past. A way marker at the start of a journey into adulthood that even his father now admitted had been selfishly guided. 

Elliot believed it. And Elliot had seen his father in action over the years.

So why didn’t he?

Sean had talked of parallels between their relationship and his dad’s. And ultimately he did know that was his answer. But not all things were equal. 

Trust, the crucial parallel, was missing.

So what did he do now? Take the parallel road from this time last year and…learn to trust?

*

Making sure his phone wasn’t on speaker so as not to disturb Sean, who was still fast asleep, he very quietly turned the handle to the glass door of the bedroom patio. He walked out into the open air.

Before they had gone to bed, Sean had shown him his ideas for what both their parents could handle for the wedding as recommended by various wedding books including Soirée’s. They were wonderful ideas. Just like the man himself. Now it was his turn to do his part about securing the weekend.

His call was answered without seeming to have connected.

“Dad,” he said softly.

His dad was silent, speechless he presumed. 

“Hello, Holden. I can hardly believe this. How are you, son?”

“Dad, I want you to listen to me. I’m gonna come in on Friday, and I’ll stay through lunch on Saturday.”

“That’s fine, son. That’s wonderful.”

“Just listen. I want you to know that if you and mom do anything to upset Sean and me this weekend, neither of you will be attending our wedding.”

There was an abrupt silence. 

“Son, for goodness sake, this shouldn’t be about that. I want you and Sean to have every—”

“I didn’t call to have a conversation. You need to tell mom.”

“Just come on up, Holden. I miss our lunches and it’s high time we all sat together as a family again. This is a new beginning for us.”

“Good night, dad.”

He tapped the end call button and lowered the phone. So that was it.

He’d had three meetings this week, but this weekend’s was all that mattered. Ready or not, tomorrow was Bel Air.

—

A light had been turned on somewhere beyond his bedroom. And he could here muted bumping noises. He cracked an eye against the soft yellow light coming from the bathroom. Already sure of the source of the noises, he still wanted to confirm. Sure enough, Holden was moving about the room bumping into things and righting them. It had to be one in the morning.

He watched Holden come across a glass mug he’d filled with fresh juice that evening. Holden peered into it, then glanced in his direction.

“Sean…oh, sorry. I-I thought you were asleep. Should I take this back to the kitchen? Won’t it go bad here overnight?”

Without opening a second eye, he stretched out his hand until Holden brought the mug and he was able to take it from him and set it on the night stand. Then he took hold of his wrist and pulled until he was forced to start climbing over him and into bed. Holden did so, protesting all the while, his long limbs pressing everywhere into him, until he was lying behind him. He then took Holden’s arm and pulled him snug against his back.

Holden stiffened against him, gearing up to say something. Something undoubtedly extraneous to one o’clock in the morning.

“Sean, I- I’m gonna—”

“Shhhhhh, shh.”

Holden fell silent. Mild tension still held sway over the body lying against him, and he reached behind him and shoved his fingers into his hair, turning and offering him his mouth. Holden instantly came over him, slipping his tongue in his mouth and licking him, kissing him until he was breathless, gasping softly, still very much half asleep. 

Sleepy point made, he slackened his grip on him and Holden gently broke the kiss, dropping little perfect ones along his beard, whispered that he should go back to sleep, and lowered himself back down behind him.

Within seconds Holden was relaxing, turning his face into the back of his head and muttering something to himself. Holden fell asleep way before him.


	7. Chapter 7

On Friday afternoon he kept a bankers’ awards luncheon on his schedule. Craig had had to drop out and no one else had it scheduled. And since he didn’t want their head of media representing the firm on his own, he decided to go. 

No big deal. The only issue was, his mother was set as one of the presenters.

He went anyway, because it was a clear headed, realistic way to start the weekend that was finally here.

The occasion was meant to be perfunctory, awards and accolades to be handed out to executives who had made an impact in the banking industry that year. And normally it was the kind of event that afforded him a chance to talk to people who were only ever names in the CC field of his emails.

Upon arriving, he and Tani were split up, he placed at a table with lawyers and corporate financiers from Merrill Lynch, and Tani at a more fun looking one of media reps. It was fine though. Everyone knew once bankers got some alcohol in them, it was hilarious waters ahead.

The luncheon swung along on the usual groan worthy industry jokes and lots of thanking and false modestying. Next to him was a Merrill Lynch executive who was bright-eyed with her dwindling chardonnay and whispering the most hilarious commentary about everyone.

A lawyer for her company, seated opposite them, had started out earlier trying to comment about the righteousness of the Forbes article strategy, how it was cute to have Instagram and Twitter followings but that they had been right to take control of public perception of “the union” as they would any other business matter. And she, imbibed as she was, had flung her hand at him and cried “Oh, hush! Instagram and Twitter followings are excellent stock holdings! They pay out the best dividends!”

In fact, he was having a great time until an award presentation was announced and Cecelia Hadley-Wilson was called on to hand it out.

His mother stood up from a corner table, slightly removed from the main floor, waving her acknowledgment to the applause, and even some wolf-whistling. She made her way up the short flight of stage stairs, thanked the MC who vacated the podium for her, and began going a graceful search of the podium for the award. 

It got the requisite laughter, the MC quickly bringing it to her with a grin and a fresh round of applause. She then lowered the mic and began telling the room about the important work the recipient had done that year.

To his left, the tipsy executive touched his arm.

“You have her smile,” she said with a beaming smile. 

Then she rolled her eyes, self-consciously.

“Like you’ve never heard that before, right?!”

“Stop embarrassing him,” the lawyer said from across the table.

The room broke into applause. 

It took a few seconds to realize that the applause hadn’t been for the lawyer’s words. 

He looked toward the stage to see the recipient taking the award from his mother, getting air-kissed by her, and she leaving the stage.

Well, here _this_ went.

A short time later, he was mingling and knowing better than to believe she had left. Not when she was aware he was around. He simply braced himself for when he ran into her. She later found him talking to one of the bankers who had won an award, this one for resuscitating neighborhood housing loans.

As the banker nodded at them and moved off, she crooked her finger at him. He went, bent over and kissed her cheek.

“Hi, dear,” she said in low tones, her eyes tangentially on him. She reached up almost distractedly and smoothed back the hair at his temple.

For a severely jarring moment, it reminded him of Anne.

“You look well,” she said.

He didn’t say anything.

“Victoria Hanson mentioned that she ran into you the other day.”

“We met,” he acknowledged, about to look down at his drink of sparkling ginger and cutting off the action. It would do him no favors if she thought he appeared nervous.

“Victoria looks well,” he added.

“Mm-hmm,” his mother responded, taking a sip of her wine. “And how did Nicola look? I haven’t seen _her_ in at least a month.”

He didn’t bite. He just sipped his drink.

“So, I had a wonderful tea with Sean the other day. Very interesting.”

On the very verge of asking what that was supposed to mean, he stopped himself.

She was merely looking for a way in, and he’d just be asking for fresh aggravation. 

Plus, no matter how satisfied with the way he was finishing up the week he was, it was never a good idea to try and outwit his parents unprepared. And the fact was that he had no actual information on what she and Sean had discussed. 

She lifted an eyebrow at his determined silence, apparently surprised he could resist asking.

Then he was suddenly gripped by a bad feeling that if she asked whether Sean hadn’t informed him of the meeting, he would have to tell her the truth. That he had refused that information. 

And all that would signal to her was that he might have something to fear.

“What exactly did you find interesting about spending some time with him?” he asked. “That he’s just like us?”

She delicately lifted a shoulder, as if to say if that was what he wanted to think.

“More to the point, I think,” she said. “Everyone loves the Forbes piece.”

His stomach tightened. But he just brought his glass to his lips. “Well, I guess that does it then,” he said softly. “Congratulations.”

“Not quiet, Holden.”

He looked at her.

But she wasn’t looking at him and was instead adjusting the diamond tennis bracelet around her wrist. 

It was one he recognized as a gift from his father from a few years back, for a commemorative occasion only the two of them knew. Probably an anniversary of the years she had put up with his affairs.

“Alastair said you’re only staying home till Saturday. I suppose I’ll see you for brunch then. I’m not going to bother asking if you saw my texts,” she said in a low voice. “But are you two coming alone after all?”

“Who else would we be bringing?”

She shrugged. “I just thought his people might be coming by at some point.”

“ _Which_ people? You’ve already covered all the publicity.”

Done adjusting the bracelet, she looked up in slight exasperation at him, then waved her hand as if he was being too much of a headache.

He tried to take another sip.

Then her eyes suddenly flashed on his left hand. 

“Darling, where’s your engagement ring?”

He froze with the glass halfway up, losing his breath. Then he colored so brightly that for a moment he couldn’t think at all.

Then thank God, one of the luncheon organizers appeared and asked if he could impose on her time for a second.

She said of course, then was indicating for him to bend so she could kiss his cheek.

“I’ll see you soon, Holden,” she said as she left with the banker.

Tani, returning, enthusiastically greeted her as they passed, then turned happily to him and told him there was a roomful of people asking where he was.

Finding somewhere to set down the ginger that wasn’t helping his stomach, he allowed himself to be led away.

And trying hard as he was to not continue hearing her undertone of near delight and seeing her excited eyes as she asked about his absent engagement ring, he completely failed to note the obvious and enormous danger sign that had been her hint regarding “Sean’s people.”

*

_Continued_


End file.
